Re: A New FreeBSD Server
This belongs on -questions, not -hackers at this point. Please wrap your lines before 80 columns. On Mon, 2006-Jun-26 19:16:35 -0400, Bob Richards wrote: On Boot, the boot-loader complained bitterly Can't find a Kernel to boot, and dropped me to an OK prompt. Damn says I! Murpheys law in effect! This deliberate: sysinstall doesn't install the kernel until everything else is complete so you can be sure that the install completed OK. The FDISK never wiped out all the old data. fdisk/disklabel doesn't touch data on the disk. It just writes information about where the slices/partitions are. This means that if you accidently put the wrong slice/partition map on your disk, you Someone NEVER thought-out this particular scenario! sysinstall realises that you have valid UFS filesystems and won't over-write them unless you explicitly tell it to. What do I do? Redo from scratch. In the 'FreeBSD Disklabel Editor' window, scroll down to your partitions and either 'D'elete them all and re-create using 'A'uto or toggle the 'N'ewfs flag and set the 'M'ount point. -- Peter Jeremy pgpc3RS1KM5eP.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
On Sat, 24 Jun 2006, Mike Meyer wrote: MM The other constraint on swap is that if you want the system to save a MM core dump if it panics, you need a device to dump on that's 64Kb MM bigger than ram. That's one device, not all of swap. This is not quite true, as there always are some unused memory regions, hence you need not add 64k to RAM size. At least, I had no trouble using swap == RAM for last 5 years or so... Sincerely, D.Marck [DM5020, MCK-RIPE, DM3-RIPN] *** Dmitry Morozovsky --- D.Marck --- Wild Woozle --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dmitry Morozovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] typed: On Sat, 24 Jun 2006, Mike Meyer wrote: MM The other constraint on swap is that if you want the system to save a MM core dump if it panics, you need a device to dump on that's 64Kb MM bigger than ram. That's one device, not all of swap. This is not quite true, as there always are some unused memory regions, hence you need not add 64k to RAM size. At least, I had no trouble using swap == RAM for last 5 years or so... Or memory areas that aren't needed when doing the post mortem. The question is, how do you guarantee that those are what's not going to make it out to the dump device? mike -- Mike Meyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
On Mon, Jun 26, 2006 at 10:10:28AM -0400, Mike Meyer wrote: In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dmitry Morozovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] typed: On Sat, 24 Jun 2006, Mike Meyer wrote: MM The other constraint on swap is that if you want the system to save a MM core dump if it panics, you need a device to dump on that's 64Kb MM bigger than ram. That's one device, not all of swap. This is not quite true, as there always are some unused memory regions, hence you need not add 64k to RAM size. At least, I had no trouble using swap == RAM for last 5 years or so... Or memory areas that aren't needed when doing the post mortem. The question is, how do you guarantee that those are what's not going to make it out to the dump device? The core dump routine won't even attempt to write if the swap space is too small, so there's no ambiguity as to what makes it into the core file. FreeBSD 5.x and previous try to write all of memory out so the extra 64Kb or so is necessary. Also, -CURRENT uses minidumps on i386 and amd64, so only memory regions of use are written out and you can get by with swap smaller than RAM. -ed ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Wow! First I want to thank all of you who responded for the great information! As I read it all, I became more and more excited about my decision to switch to FreeBsd! And became more and more impatient with US Postal Mail! So! I went and downloaded the floppy Install Set from freebsd.org, and created the floppy install set. I set up the Dell server thus: 19GB Drives 1 through 4 in a RAID 1/0 IE 2 sets of Mirrors, in a striped array, making up the first (and bootable) container on the PERC 2 controller. The last 2 19GB Drives. I simply Mirrored into a second 19GB container. So, from the BIOS percpective I had a APROX 33GB Drive, and an additional 19GB drive available for the OS. Pretty much more than I need! (for now) So! I boot the box from boot disk, and boot is OK asked for Kernel 1 floppy, the Kernel 2 Floppy. all A-OK! Install starts, and I proceed. I run through the FDISK portion of the install; Allocate the entire first drive to FreeBsd, and say AUTO. it allocates what appears to be a reasonable slice to each mount-point, and I proceed, with a full Install Via FTP. FreeBsd, was intelligent enough to find/use the DHCP server, and connected to freebsd.org, and downloaded a mess of stuff!. OK; Install successfully completed, want to add APPS? Sure! Why not! So I picked out some editors and shells I use all the time, and PORTS went out to get them. at this point, my DSL connecton went down! Damn! I reset the router, and back up. BUT An IP change occurred and the download from the FTP site never continued! I could do nothing except ABORT the install! So fine! I aborted. Since I had received the Congratulations on an Install message, I ASSUMED all I had to do was re-boot from HD and go to SYSINSTALL and complete the install. NOT! On Boot, the boot-loader complained bitterly Can't find a Kernel to boot, and dropped me to an OK prompt. Damn says I! Murpheys law in effect! So I just booted from the floppies again, and started the install again NOT SO! Even after another FDISK, the system knew I had data on the drives, and simply went ahead and finished what it had not completed. On end, I exited Install, the system re-booted, and again, it could not find a Kernel to boot! The slice/allocation was percerved, even after another AUTO Fdisk! Now I was upset! (BSD Damn well be more smart than LINUX!) The FDISK never wiped out all the old data. Someone NEVER thought-out this particular scenario! What do I do? Re-Format the RAID Array? and for-sure wipe out the privious install attempt? Any sugestions as to where to start again? TIA Bob -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFEoGrTeoERI/Lb/ZwRAgZ8AJ9vbzhVf1Z0SmZy1AkR7XDV6+56+wCZARld SUEuIU9b9lQ1W5kswb1xCg4= =TqmE -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
On Sat, Jun 24, 2006 at 03:32:26PM -0400, Mike Meyer wrote: Why not RAID your swap? The extra reliability might not be worth very much, but the extra performance couldn't hurt - unless you don't plan on swapping at all. This is enough of a win that the swap subsystem will interleave swap usage across multiple drives, a facility that predates RAID. If you just split your swap across multiple drives, you get RAID0 behavior from swap. Really? I thought it was possible to interleave multiple swap devices. I'm probably wrong, but I thought I remembered seeing 'interleaved' somewhere. Maybe my definition of interleaved is differented from someone elses :-) ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Avleen Vig [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: : On Sat, Jun 24, 2006 at 03:32:26PM -0400, Mike Meyer wrote: : Why not RAID your swap? The extra reliability might not be worth very : much, but the extra performance couldn't hurt - unless you don't plan : on swapping at all. This is enough of a win that the swap subsystem : will interleave swap usage across multiple drives, a facility that : predates RAID. If you just split your swap across multiple drives, you : get RAID0 behavior from swap. : : Really? I thought it was possible to interleave multiple swap devices. : I'm probably wrong, but I thought I remembered seeing 'interleaved' : somewhere. Maybe my definition of interleaved is differented from : someone elses :-) Swapping to multiple devices does tend, on the average, to spread the load. But on the average doesn't mean all the time. When swapping to a device that's on a RAID, then you get the interleave every single time. Warner ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
On Sat, 24 Jun 2006, Mike Meyer wrote: Swap drive, should probably be a piece of one of the 17GB drives (NO RAID) the Box has 500MB ram.. Why not RAID your swap? The extra reliability might not be worth very much, but the extra performance couldn't hurt - unless you don't plan on swapping at all. This is enough of a win that the swap subsystem will interleave swap usage across multiple drives, a facility that predates RAID. If you just split your swap across multiple drives, you get RAID0 behavior from swap. On my boxes, I always put swap on RAID, for two reasons: (1) When swapping, performance does matter, so having the extra throughput and reduced latency helps quite a bit under load. This is especially important if you use a swap-backed temporary file system for /tmp. (2) System reliability depends on swap reliability. Specifically, if your init process, or X server, etc loses its memory because your swap disk dies, that's really bad for reliability. Similar arguments apply to system boot disks, which are left out of RAIDs by some administrators. Data corruption in swap or system programs and data can result in overall system failures, and the possibility of data corruption due to misbehaving apps, etc. I always stick all swap and file systems on RAID for critical systems in order to avoid the cost and risks of recovering from a non-RAID failure. Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
Bob Richards wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi Folks: This is my first post here. I believe it is the correct list for my questions. If not, please excuse me and direct me to the proper list. I have been using Linux as my WorkStation since V0.98 Kernel, so I know a bit about NIX's I am giving up on Linux for various reasons which I won't go into here. Welcome to FreeBSD land.. :) I am setting up a Dell 2400 Server for FreeBSD use. I ordered the Big $79.00 CD/Manual set for 6.1, and it should arrive in a few days. In the mean time I am setting up the server. The Dell, a dual CPU machine, has a PERC 2/Si controler, with 6 17GB drives. I am in the process of verifying/formating the individual drives as I type. The next step will be to create containers, which will appear as DRIVES to the new OS. My question is what is the best configuration for FreeBsd? I want some form of RAID, and as fast a file system as is possible. I will be doing a very COMPLETE install, as I like to do things like switch from KDE to Gnome once in a while, and have tons of office-type apps. I need a full C development system, as well as a complete FreePascal setup. My CVS Repository is around 10GB, and my Home dir currently has 10GB of additional stuff :-( Swap drive, should probably be a piece of one of the 17GB drives (NO RAID) the Box has 500MB ram.. One way to do this would be to set up two drives as a mirror, and the other 4 drives as either a RAID 5, or for more performance a RAID10 (a mirrored pair of 2 disk stripes). Once you've got the OS installed, you'll want to check out the ports collection (make sure you install it during the install) - cd to /usr/ports/ and look around. The Handbook (on freebsd.org) is absolutely incredible, and tells you nearly everything you need to know about nearly everything FreeBSD related, so I'd suggest looking at the section on the ports collection. There are roughly 15,000 ports that you can install easily, to get your KDE/GNOME environment just how you want it. Eric -- Eric AndersonSr. Systems AdministratorCentaur Technology Anything that works is better than anything that doesn't. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A New FreeBSD Server
In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bob Richards [EMAIL PROTECTED] typed: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi Folks: This is my first post here. I believe it is the correct list for my questions. If not, please excuse me and direct me to the proper list. I have been using Linux as my WorkStation since V0.98 Kernel, so I know a bit about NIX's I am giving up on Linux for various reasons which I won't go into here. I am setting up a Dell 2400 Server for FreeBSD use. I ordered the Big $79.00 CD/Manual set for 6.1, and it should arrive in a few days. In the mean time I am setting up the server. The Dell, a dual CPU machine, has a PERC 2/Si controler, with 6 17GB drives. I am in the process of verifying/formating the individual drives as I type. The next step will be to create containers, which will appear as DRIVES to the new OS. My question is what is the best configuration for FreeBsd? I want some form of RAID, and as fast a file system as is possible. I will be doing a very COMPLETE install, as I like to do things like switch from KDE to Gnome once in a while, and have tons of office-type apps. I need a full C development system, as well as a complete FreePascal setup. My CVS Repository is around 10GB, and my Home dir currently has 10GB of additional stuff :-( One of the things I like about FreeBSD is that it installs the developer tools. One of the goals is (or was?) that a base install should be able to rebuild the system. So you get a complete C environment when you install the system. Likewise, packages don't come in user and dev variants - if you install something, you get the complete package, including all the things needed to compile code against the package. Swap drive, should probably be a piece of one of the 17GB drives (NO RAID) the Box has 500MB ram.. Why not RAID your swap? The extra reliability might not be worth very much, but the extra performance couldn't hurt - unless you don't plan on swapping at all. This is enough of a win that the swap subsystem will interleave swap usage across multiple drives, a facility that predates RAID. If you just split your swap across multiple drives, you get RAID0 behavior from swap. The other constraint on swap is that if you want the system to save a core dump if it panics, you need a device to dump on that's 64Kb bigger than ram. That's one device, not all of swap. FreeBSD has memory-backed file systems that use swap (I don't know if Linux has those or not), and it's generally a performance win to mount transient file systems on such. Doing this with /tmp and /var is common enough that there are rc.conf knobs to do this automatically at boot time. Those typically come from swap, with a variety of ways of allocating memory. See the md man page for details. So you can get that use out of swap, even if your processes don't swap much. You may be a little light on the ram. My desktop runs just fine in 512Mb, but I don't run GUI-heavy things like Gnome or KDE. I'd plan to add more RAM if I were you, because adding RAM is easy. Reconfiguring your disk system to add more swap so you can still get core dumps is noticably harder. So you might want to pretend you're allocating swap for a machine with a gig of ram, and put two 1gig+64K swap partitions on different spindles. mike -- Mike Meyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
