Phew, you don't ask for much do ya ;).

----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Can some explain some ideas and concepts to me, or point me in the
> right
> direction of documentation?
> 
> WIKI
> ====
> XINIT, can you set up a Wiki?  I'm discovering all sorts of things as
> I
> play, configure, delete, get stuck, figure things out and I would
> very
> happily share these in a wiki, but there aint one so I can't and thats
> a
> real shame.


Any docs you can contribute would be great. We actually have a wiki at 
https://projects.openfiler.com but it's not open for public editing. We're 
having an acute problem with spammers so I need to figure out how to open up 
the wiki for legit usage. But thanks for the offer of contributing - much 
appreciated. I'll sort something out quickly so you can do the braindumps 
whenever you fancy. In the meantime if you want to foward docs in .txt I'll 
push up to the wiki. 

> 
> SNAPSHOTS
> =========
> I'm thinking these are like backups.  Is that correct?

In a sense. Basically a snapshot is a point-in-time copy of the state of your 
volume. 

> How come I get to speficy the size of the backup?

It's not the size of the backup you're specifying. You're basically saying: let 
there be X amount of space available to record the changes made to the original 
(source volume) of this snapshot. So when X amount of changes to the source 
volume have been made, the snapshot is no longer viable. That's an overly 
simplistic characterization of what a snapshot does/is. To learn more wikipedia 
is your friend. 


> I've currently setup a snapshot to run once a week and rotate every
> 8,
> but I've made it the same size as the volume is a snapshot of, will
> this
> actualy work?

Prolly a bit OTT. 

> How should I calculate the size of a snapshot?

Generally 20-30% of the size of the source volume should be good. Unless of 
course you're expecting more than that amount of changes to be made during the 
lifetime of the snapshot. 

> How come Openfiler doesnt calculate this and suggest a size?

:(. We'll work on it. 

> Can I have the snapshots be stored on a 2nd Openfiler box?

Not at present. Although if you have a replicated setup, the snapshots are also 
replicated. Another option is to import an iSCSI volume and use that as your PV 
snapshot target. But that's not implemented yet (and prolly won't be for some 
time as our TODO list just keeps growing ;)

> How come in my "list of existing volumes" the snapshots appear to
> take
> up no space?

Cos no changes have yet been made to the source volume. As the source volume 
changes (create/delete/copy operations), you'll see your usage creep up. 


> Enhancement Request: It would be great (I think, without fully
> understanding the snapshot idea) to be able to schedule, annual,
> monthly, weekly, daily snapshots (as in father, grand father etc
> backups).
> 

Accepted. Please open a ticket at https://projects.openfiler.com (enter your 
email address there so you can track ticket progress). 


> Other systems Disks
> ===================
> I have read, here on this list, that Openfiler can present "disks" it
> can see from other systems, if this is true, how?


If you import iSCSI volumes from an external target, they will show up in the 
partition editor in Openfiler. There's currently no GUI configuration for iSCSI 
imports so you need to manually set this up. 


> 
> RAID Volumes
> ============
> How do I setup a hot swap?

When you create a RAID volume, you have the option of allocating a hot-spare 
disk. 

To hot-swap a disk however, you'll need to manually run some mdadm commands to 
remove a disk from the array and then again to add the replacement. 

> Can I add software RAID volumes to an existing array such that the
> array
> grows in size?

Currnently only as a spare. But there's no reason why that can't be 
implemented. 


> Is it possible to upgrade a RAID5 to RAID6, without first deleting
> anything?

RAID Level Migration is pretty complex stuff, many hardware RAID controllers 
even don't support it. 
If at some point mdadm (the RAID management subsystem) does implement RLM, so 
will Openfiler. 

> Enhancement Request: When setting the underlying partition size,
> please
> allow this to be done by size, so that it's easy to create
> partitions/volumes that can join an existing array when the physical
> disks have a different number of cylinders.

OK. This is actually on our TODO. I think there's even a ticket open for it. 


> 
> XML Config Files
> ================
> In a previous reply to me it is indicated there are XML configuration
> files, are these documented anywhere?


Not currently. But they're pretty much self-explanatory. Most are in 
/opt/openfiler/etc/*.xml, and the rest in the top-level directories of 
individual shares/volumes. However, I stidently recommend you not mess around 
with them. If however you insist on doing so, keep a box of tissues handy ;).

> 
> Config Backup
> =============
> How do I backup (and restore) all the config information?

We'll be pushing out a new release sometime this week/early next. As part of 
that release, I also am hoping to have a backup/restore script that will not 
only allow migration from current Openfiler installs, but also as a general 
configuration backup tool. 

> Since I have software RAID through Openfiler I need to know how to
> restore the SAN/NAS after it's boot disk has suffered a failure.

Mirror the boot disk :). Can't stress that enough. 


Cheerio,

R. 

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