Hey guys,

I’m running my FreeBSD server now for around 1 month using ZFS for all my data. I was fascinated by ZFS for a long time (well, for a few days even), but with the time, it seems that there are 2 things that are not so well as expected using ZFS.

Painpoint 1 [Speed]
Yes, ZFS with an zpool using RAIDz1 (RAID5 similar) is a lot of work for the CPU and a lot thing to buffer for the RAM. It’s not that I wasn’t warned by the docs, 1GB of RAM is mandatory for running RAIDz1. The reason is quiet simple explained:

RAIDz1 needs to check itself, the so-called “self healing process”. That costs a lot of power and time. Reading and comparing the checksums (which is the magic behind the security) is time expensive. The result?

Well, writing files to my UFS partition (system disk) means to be able to put files with 80-90MByte/s through the GBit network onto this disk.

Same line, same source, but different disk(s) (now the zpool) ends up in putting just 30-40MByte/s through the network.

Both tests are done using an NFS share between my Mac Pro and the FreeBSD server in the basement.

Well, that’s odd and a bit frustrating for me, because it took me a few hours of work to extend the network from 100MBit/s Level to 1GBit/s Level by checking every single connection in the plugs and beeing sure everything is grounded.

Painpoint 2 [Expansion issues]
Sure, ZFS/RAIDz1 is no Drobo, so you can’t easily hot plug drives in and out and get “full” usage of the new disks by doing so. That’s ok, but the really annoying thing is, that you cannot expand your RAIDz1 zpool afterwards. If you want to expand your zpool, you’ll need to store your files somewhere (sure, it is recommended to have a current backup everytime, so that shouldn’t be the problem for the people who are doing this naturally) and destroy the old zpool and create the new one with the new disk.

That’s ok if you have for example 3x 1TB disks and want to add at least 1 more disk to have a final size of around about 2.8TB available and then you’re finished with that project. But if you want to storage to grow, there’s just one (expensive) chance to do this:

Buy at least 3 1TB disks and build a seconds zpool. Then you are able to mix both zpools to one large. That’s expensive, maybe a nice solution for a company, because that would result in something called a RAIDz2 / RAID6 similar with 2 parity disks. But for easy growing, ZFS is not the filesystem you’ve dreamed off. It’s easier to do those things with LVM on Linux for example. Haven’t used LVM on more than one disk for myself honestly, so I can’t say anything about security regarding LVM.

Painpoint 3 [FreeBSD]
FreeBSD is cool, isn’t it? It’s more or less to administrate and it’s rock solid. Yes it is, but the first thing, easy to administrate, I must say: no. Maybe because of my knowledge of Debian, but I really miss a simply “apt-get install apache2″ and a few more apt-get’s to install a great running webserver.

I’m not really sure and I think I will take this day off to think about it and what are the best practices. On the one hand, the ZFS is damn secure, on the other hand, having services running on FreeBSD is hard hard work for me.

Well – enjoy your sunday, I’ll do and I’m happy to have the upcoming week free for holidays This means: sleeping long and have more time to rethink this all (or simply switching off the computers and having a great time with my wife ).

Ciao
Dennis

PS. I just got a very rude comment on Reddit about this article. I want to make clear, that I don’t blame the software (FreeBSD nor ZFS) in ANY way! It’s great software, but this article shows my current experiences with it. I just wanted to make this clear!

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Good morning guys,

Saesh has asked me, if I’ve tried using NFS from FreeBSD and OS X as client. Well, I had it in mind, but haven’t tested it yet. So, yesterday morning I gave it a try.

NFS comes integrated in FreeBSD 7.1 (which is the system that I use on the fileserver). All you have to do to start it up are those steps:

Add those 3 lines to your /etc/rc.conf
rpcbind_enable="YES"
nfs_server_enable="YES"
mountd_flags="-r"

Next, create your own /etc/exports in the format:
/storage 192.168.0.123

This will allow the client with the IP 192.168.0.123 to access the fileserver’s share (path: /storage) via NFS. Also in Leopard, NFS is built it, but there are a few more steps to do before you can try to log on.

Most important: Check if nfsd (NFS daemon) is running yet, if so – kill the processes.

# ps axu | grep nfsd
root 8918 0.0 0.0 4604 1380 ?? Is 2:30PM 0:00.03 nfsd: master
root 8919 0.0 0.0 4604 1072 ?? I 2:30PM 0:35.74 nfsd: server
root 8920 0.0 0.0 4604 1072 ?? I 2:30PM 0:18.33 nfsd: server
root 8921 0.0 0.0 4604 1072 ?? I 2:30PM 0:16.56 nfsd: server
root 8922 0.0 0.0 4604 1072 ?? I 2:30PM 0:16.20 nfsd: server
root 25658 0.0 0.0 5928 1220 p0 R+ 8:05AM 0:00.00 grep nfsd
# kill -9 8918 8919 8920 8921 8922

Ok – now you’re ready for the final initialization

# /etc/rc.d/mountd onereload
# rpcbind
# nfsd -u -t -n 4
# mountd -r

That’s it. Check your sharepoints with a simple
# showmount -e
Exports list on localhost:
/storage 192.168.0.123

You should be now able to mount your NFS share from OS X Leopard. But now, my problems begin. I’m currently now able to read/write from Leopard. Why? Well, I’m sure it’s again the every-time-killing-my-nerves user rights that annoys me here again.

But, slowly. On the Mac, press CMD+K, when you’ve selected the Finder. A popup will appear.

Mounting this should work and you will possibly get the following message, which means, that you don’t have rights to access this folder (*sigh* )

At the finder, it looks like this (do you see the little red sign inside the icon?).

What I’ve done is to create a new “share” or “export” in the /etc/exports of my Backup drive (2x 200GB which is more a testdrive with ZFS RAIDz1, too). I set the complete Volume to

# chmod 777 -R /backup

Then I mount it (don’t forget to)
# /etc/rc.d/mountd onereload
before you mount! Otherwise you will not be able to mount

Looks like it works, ha? Yes – a bit. I can now access the Backup Volume and copy a file from this share to my harddisk to test the speed. I’ve fixed the connection between the home office (attic) and the basement (server rack), so full 1GBit/s is available. I was able to copy the files with a rate of 70-80MByte/s from the server to the local disk inside my Mac.

That’s damn fast and a lot lot faster than SMB.

The bad thing is, I’m not able to write files onto this disk. Yes – since “chmod 777″ allows me, I’m able to create folders and also copy files to the disc, but I’m not able to use them. Let me show you an example:

I drag a file from my desktop to this share (fully “777″!)

You possibly need to identify yourself as root… (short version)

The file that you want to copy contains at least one object wherefor you have just the rights to read. Do you want to copy that file?

Well, finally it’s placed and looks good…

…but to open it, won’t work “The file you are trying to open is damaged or the format is unknown”

Uh! Nice message for a simple PNG file, isn’t it? Well, that’s the point where I am at the moment. The NFS server is running, but I can’t really access my files. Sure, I can open the already stored files without problems, but adding new? Currently not possible.

Oh well, I found examples like this for the /etc/exports (mostly for Linux):
/storage 192.168.0.0/24(rw,sync,insecure)

This allows everyone from the 192.168.0.x network to access those files with read/write permissions. Insecure is a command that should work with Leopard. Nice! I tried it, but when I type “showmount -e” afterwards (and after refreshing mountd), I see NO shares, also Leopard is no more able to mount anything.

Ideas and help is really appreciated

Ciao
Dennis

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G’morning guys,

do you know the feeling when a system is so rock solid that you having nothing to complain about?

Well, me not – yet. But it seems, that FreeBSD is such a system. Let me explain what happend.

The installed OS (Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6) on my Client/Workstation is basicly installed since August last year. Yep! I moved it using Carbon Copy Cloner over 3 harddisks so far, because I was in need of the disk space for the backup for the server preparation (to name it: all 3x 1TB disks were in use and no more available for backups). So – this morning something strange happend. I’m gonna use a Samba/SMB/CIFS currently for the main transfer of files and the videostuff between the Mac and the FreeBSD server. I was just in Photoshop to save a the photo of the X41 keyboard that I used for my this mornings update on the last post. Suddenly it told me that it can’t save. Error. Booom. I thought “Damn – what’s this?”, opened up a terminal and connected to the server using the GBit Subnet IP. Works fine, a Samba restart didn’t helped me out. I was about to think about a server reboot, but wait. Since 2 days, my QuickSilver didn’t index as regular, typing program names delivers anything else, but not what I was looking for. Finally, I shut the Mac down, give a few seconds to rest and launched it up. To explain: I’m using the energy save mode and rarly really shut down the Mac. So the uptime was about 2 weeks or so and the RAM was filled up to 10GB because of different very big tools for videocut.

Booting it up again didn’t showed me my Storage Samba icon. Oh dear! It’s a server problem. But, hold on – pressing Alt+K to connect to the server and voilá – it works. Normally it should mount itself on the systems start, but I think that I’ve used the wrong account credentials to login when I created this shortcut.

Icon back, everything fine and works.

Resumé: The meanwhile 5 days running server (yes 24/7), works still perfect. I think I should find a job for him, like doing SETI@home or Folding@home or Climate Prediction jobs using BOINC.

Desired icon of luck

In the last few days, I really thought about switching to OpenSolaris on the server because of the bit better implemenation of ZFS into the system, but – it’s rock solid, so why should I do if everything works fine? FreeBSD seems really to be one of those (todays rare) “Fire & Forgot” systems.

Just Pros for this OS? Hmmnaaaa…. not all is fine. It’s a server OS in my mind. I used to install it on my X41 as mentioned in my last post, it’s fine and after fiddling around for a few hours and the great help of some guys from the #bsdgroup.de channel on irc.freenode.org, the WiFi also worked flawless, but what’s this? pkg_add and using the ports just give me Firefox 2.0? Yes – Firefox is even on my Mac not the nice and stable sweet part of software that I know well from the past (it really tends to crash and I’m just using AdBlock Plus, Filter Updater, Foxmarks and Flash as plugins).

While I’m waiting for the recovery CDs to arrive, I think I will play with other systems, I’ve laying around here. Cryptic stuff like QNX or so Nothing to work with, but interessting to play with, isn’t it?

For your amusement, here’s, to return to the server site of this post, a few videos I found on YouTube about ZFS. I really enjoyed them and they finally helped me to make the decision to use ZFS and RAIDz1 for my data.

Have fun!

Ciao
Dennis

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Hey guys,

as little update, I’m happy to be back online with an IPCop. This incredible firewall, which in Linux based at freely available, is a great software that replaces my FritzBoxes – well, honestly that’s not true, because currently I need to use one FritzBox to connect to the main DSL (16MBit/s) line.

My wife got a brand new iMac 24″ on Monday, so we had one PC too much here. Some of you know that I own a 22U rack in the basement. So I decided to use this PC (Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 250GB SATA HDD) for the IPCop. The hardware is extremely oversized, but why not? Don’t using it at all is a bad idea, so – here we go.

The IPCop delivers now the following services to the network:
- DNS
- Internet Access
- Failover (if T-Online fails, IPCop will dial in to Arcor immediately)
- Proxy (Advanced Proxy)
- URL Filter (to block ads! Incredible speed boost for surfing)
- DHCP

The name of this machin is “blackpearl”. I had this name selected for our IPCop last year for the old installation (on a PIII/1GHz). I like it – and yes – it’s grabbed from Pirates of the Carrebian

At this weekend, the network will be redesigned completly. This means to put the Cat6 patchpanel to the patchpanel cabinet in the storage room and remove the current Cat5e one. Also, the FreeBSD server, which is now built into a 19″ 4U case, too, will be attached to the rack as well as the IPCop. I just need to solve on issue: I can’t get the lines currently to work on 1GBit/s, just with 100MBit/s. A tipp was to check the groundings of every patch and plug. What a lot of fun!

So – here’s just a photo of the FreeBSD server with the 6 attached harddisks. (Pssst! There’s enough space available for an 8 port SATA-II controller and a 3x 5.25″U 5 Port SATA-II Backplane 10TB RAIDz1 – here I come – well – within the next year or so! )

It’s sad, that the ZFS RAIDz1 is NOT extendable – yet (?). So creating a larger RAIDset would result in doing copies to.. well.. no idea

Ciao
Dennis

FreeBSD server “carter” in built. Meanwhile there’s a DVD+-R/W/RAM drive inside

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Hi,

is it me? I don’t think so. I’m using Firefox in the current version on my Mac and on Windows on my work notebook. On both systems, in the last version, it tends to crash very often, not to mention those annoying Flash error messages that I get on the Mac version.

Maybe it’s one of my plugins, but I don’t believe that, because I’m using them for a long time now:

- Foxmarks (Mac/Win)
- AdBlock Plus (Mac/Win)
- AdBlock Filter.G Updater (Mac/Win)
- FoxClocks (Win)
- FireBug (Win)
- FirePHP (Win)

I’ve no idea what to do to solve this. I’ve already set up Firefox new on both machines with bad results. Especially plaing Flash Videos seems to affect it and let it crash, the same goes for the Java of WebEx.

Suggestions and ideas how to solve this are welcome as well as your own experiences with the recent (3.0.6) version.

Ciao
Dennis

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Good morning,

while I’m still in the Pre-Production of the next Videoblog, I would like to give you an update on my (private) ThinkPad X41. I admit, I played around with FreeBSD & OpenSolaris on my X41 (as shown ) and while doing this, I killed the Recovery Partition (oops!).

So I called IBM/Lenovo for Support – to get a Recovery CD for this ThinkPad, because it was bought used from eBay an came without the Recovery CD (sure, it also came without a CD/DVD drive, I bought an external USB LG DVD+-R/RW/RAM). IBM/Lenovo will send me the CD without any fees, the ThinkPad is still inside the guarantee. I also mentioned, that the “S”-Key won’t work so well from time to time – no problem – they will send me a new German labeled keyboard – also free. That’s what I would call a great service

Now I’m excited when CD & keyboard will arrive. I already replaced the keyboard of my T41 which is now owned by wife, when we had an accident with a can of RedBull… It’s no problem to replace anything in ThinkPads.

Have a nice day!

Ciao
Dennis

Update Feb, 5th @ 07:49am CET

Wow – they are really fast. UPS has delivered the new keyboard for the X41 Tablet yesterday. The installation was as easy as expected, but because the case is really different from the well knows T41, it took me about 15 minutes to install it. It’s working very nice and I’m very happy with my native German keyboard without stickers who stop you from working really smooth. I’ve every had the feeling to pop out the keys while pressing for example the left Shift key.

Unfortunaly, the batteries of my camera weren’t loaded, so I shot a photo with my iPhone, which is not very well, but shows the built in new keyboard.

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