Re: networking won't come back up until reboot after ISP outage
>Sounds like you are narrowing down the culprit(s). Also note that it could >possibly be a timing issue related to the order things start up. If the NATD >is attempting to start before the interface has come up it will die. /etc/rc.d/natd has no REQUIRE section, so it is indeed possible for it to activate right at the very start. It also has a 'precmd' that checks for dhcp interfaces and sets up the -dynamic flag. Might be related. I have no way of knowing though, unless I add some debug messages and figure out to log them. I added "REQUIRE: NETWORKING" and now I'm waiting to see if the issue appears again. It's a tedious procedure... and the fact that sometimes, this causes named to not work isn't helping either. >You can use something like natd_flags="-l" in /etc/rc.conf. I have tried this, and the only thing it logs are nat rules that get set up at startup time. I could not find anything that would turn on actual status messages for this process... PS: Is there a way to turn on logging on the entire rc startup procedure? There are a lot of messages that get printed onto the physical screen, but none of them actually end up in /var/log/messages. None of the three 'rc_debug', 'rc_info' or 'rc_startmsgs' do it. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
RE: atom based servers
Jack Barnett opined: >Curious, how did you get it installed? I used the AMD64 MemStick image on a Corsair 2GB key. It's one I had lying around and that wasn't 8x larger than the image. >My motherboard doesn't have an IDE port (so, no IDE CD-ROM) and don't >think booting from USB-CDROM is supported > >Booting from USB Flash drive works? It did for me - I never had an intention of putting an optical drive in that server (none of my servers have opticals any more). Nothing strange in the BIOS - just the normal boot options. IME these things are finally getting to the "just works" stage. Thankfully! Dave. -- David Rawling PD Consulting And Security Email: d...@pdconsec.net ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: FreeBSD-8.0-RC2 problems
On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Norbert Papke wrote: > On November 6, 2009, Masoom Shaikh wrote: > > > problem # 1 > > The problem is KDE4 is not able to display anti aliased fonts. I have > made > > the required changes to make it work, of course, in System Settings -> > > Appearance -> Fonts > > Hinting -> Full, and there is is one more option, the name i cannot > recall > > ATM, I have set it to RGB. DPI to 96..this is has worked for all > > combination of installs I have used so far, viz KDE3 on FreeBSD-6.x to > > KDE4.1.x on FreeBSD-7.x and KDE4.2 on FreeBSD-8.0RC1 > > My guess is that "print/freetype2" is not built with anti-aliasing support. > Rebuild it specifying "WITH_LCD_FILTERING" . > > See also http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=139603 > > Cheers, > > -- Norbert Papke. > npa...@acm.org > > > http://saveournet.ca > Protecting your Internet's level playing field > this time I reverted back to FreeBSD-7.2 untill 8.0 I have same observations, KDE4 based apps are not anti-aliased, but GTK based are, since fonts look excellant in Firefox-3.5.5 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
ATI Eyefinity support in FreeBSD
I recently came across this web page regarding ATI: http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity.aspx Is this supported under FreeBSD also? -- Jerry ges...@yahoo.com |=== |=== |=== |=== | No one gets sick on Wednesdays. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: ATI Eyefinity support in FreeBSD
Jerry wrote: > I recently came across this web page regarding ATI: > > http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity.aspx > > Is this supported under FreeBSD also? > > Hey, this is indeed very interesting. But did you read the fine print at the bottom of the page? "Linux support scheduled to be enabled via a future ATI Catalyst™ driver release." Nobody cares about us FreeBSD fraks... :'( ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: APM
> Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:28:10 -0800 (PST) > From: James Phillips > Subject: APM > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Message-ID: <784120.47330...@web65508.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > > I realize the memory can't be shutdown without Hibernation > support, but the disks can be spun down manually (using > atacontrol): > http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=1012 > > However, when I try to do that, I find that the disk wakes > within 2 seconds of spinning down. I noticed that the > spindowns are logged. Could the log being written be causing > the drive to spin up again? I initially set the time-out to 60 seconds, then 300 seconds in a vain attempt to see the actual power savings. With a 900 second time-out, the drive only spun down once in the past 12 hours. It appears that syslogd can defer *one* log entry. Understandable, since you don't want to loose too many logs in a power failure. tail /var/log/messages (trimmed entries from the 300 second time-out): Nov 13 07:46:59 dusty kernel: ad4: Idle, spin down Nov 13 07:46:59 dusty kernel: wakeup from sleeping state (slept 00:35:44) Nov 13 07:47:01 ad4: request while spun down, starting. It looks like the logging of the "spin down" woke up the sleeping system. Either that, or the computer did not know the actual spin-down time. The sleep time was reported to be 2144 seconds: 1244 seconds longer than the the set spin-down time (900 seconds). If it was spun-down when I checked this morning, the difference was less than 3W. Though, the current drive (5400RPM) uses ~2 fewer watts than the old (7200 RPM) drive. I'm an not sure, since I replaced RAM, and installed an optical drive since measuring my base-line (with the old drive). My computer case has noise-dampening foam for the hard-disk. I can't hear if the drive is spinning over the inverter in the ADSL modem (9W) and the (quiet) fan noise from both the router (21W) and server. I can heard a "click" when it starts up, that is about it. Regards, James Phillips __ Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Remote re-installation of current FreeBSD system.
Hello all, I'm in control of a dedicated server and I would like to re-install FreeBSD. I found the following guide: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/remote-install/ which seems to cover pretty much all should need but it assumes that I have some other OS (linux) installed, since I have FreeBSD 7.2-p4 I wonder if maybe there is an easier way. The reason for wanting to re-install is because I only have on big slice that covers the entire harddrive and I don't want that. Primarily I would like to have /usr/local in a separate slice. Any input, advice, tips etc would be very welcomed. (trying to be prepared before attempting anything) Thank you, -r ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: Remote re-installation of current FreeBSD system.
Roger a écrit : Hello all, I'm in control of a dedicated server and I would like to re-install FreeBSD. I found the following guide: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/remote-install/ which seems to cover pretty much all should need but it assumes that I have some other OS (linux) installed, since I have FreeBSD 7.2-p4 I wonder if maybe there is an easier way. The reason for wanting to re-install is because I only have on big slice that covers the entire harddrive and I don't want that. Primarily I would like to have /usr/local in a separate slice. Any input, advice, tips etc would be very welcomed. (trying to be prepared before attempting anything) Thank you, -r ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org" AFAIK, it's not possible to install a BSD system from a linux system. I searched some time, and it does not seem to be possible. Finally, I used mfsBSD to install. I booted on a rescue disk (Linux), then, I did : dd if=mfsBSD.img | ssh remotehost dd of=/dev/sda Then, a reboot, and I accessed the system via ssh. Julien Gormotte This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: Remote re-installation of current FreeBSD system.
> > Hello all, >> >> I'm in control of a dedicated server and I would like to re-install >> FreeBSD. >> I found the following guide: >> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/remote-install/ >> which seems to cover pretty much all should need but it assumes that >> I have some other OS (linux) installed, since I have FreeBSD 7.2-p4 I >> wonder >> if maybe there is an easier way. >> >> The reason for wanting to re-install is because I only have on big >> slice that covers the >> entire harddrive and I don't want that. Primarily I would like to have >> /usr/local >> in a separate slice. >> >> Any input, advice, tips etc would be very welcomed. >> (trying to be prepared before attempting anything) >> >> > AFAIK, it's not possible to install a BSD system from a linux system. I > searched some time, and it does not seem to be possible. > Finally, I used mfsBSD to install. I booted on a rescue disk (Linux), then, > I did : > dd if=mfsBSD.img | ssh remotehost dd of=/dev/sda > > Then, a reboot, and I accessed the system via ssh. > Actually is qasi possible http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2008-01-29-depenguinator-2.0.html But the OP question isn't resolved by that. -- Adam Vande More ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: APM
Hi-- On Nov 13, 2009, at 12:15 PM, James Phillips wrote: I initially set the time-out to 60 seconds, then 300 seconds in a vain attempt to see the actual power savings. With a 900 second time- out, the drive only spun down once in the past 12 hours. It appears that syslogd can defer *one* log entry. Understandable, since you don't want to loose too many logs in a power failure. One of the first things you should consider is either disabling syslogd entirely, or else setup logging to a RAMdisk (ie, have an initial copy of what's in /var on the hard disk, setup a RAMdisk and mount as /var, then copy over the /var tree from hard drive to RAMdisk during early stages of system boot). The advice given for NanoBSD or embedded NetBSD systems about conserving writes to a flash-based filesystem would be helpful in your case. You might also want to note that 2.5" laptop drives are/should be explicitly designed to spin down and park themselves much more often than generic IDE drives are; some generic desktop drives will fail quite rapidly (ie, in a matter of months) if you attempt to spin them down many times a day. You might also give some consideration to trying a Mac Mini with maximum power-savings mode enabled; OSX provides significant amounts of hysteresis to avoid spinning the disks up and down, and will buffer significant amounts of data being changed into RAM to coalesce filesystem activity into fewer periods of disk activity. Regards, -- -Chuck ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: Remote re-installation of current FreeBSD system.
On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 03:28:04PM -0500, Roger wrote: > Hello all, > > I'm in control of a dedicated server and I would like to re-install FreeBSD. > I found the following guide: > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/remote-install/ > which seems to cover pretty much all should need but it assumes that > I have some other OS (linux) installed, since I have FreeBSD 7.2-p4 I wonder > if maybe there is an easier way. Well, you say a dedicated server, but you do not say it is remote. The article is for a remote install - that is, one where you cannot put your hands on the actual machine. The article also assumes you are making a raid with gmirror. With just one drive, you can ignore that stuff. If it is really a remote machine, then you will have to go through that stuff about building an mfs and running from it. But, not if you have direct access to the machine. If you can get to it and shut it down and put CDs in it, the process is much more simple. In that case you just do good backups and check them out to make sure they are readable, put the install CD in and boot the machine. That will bring up Sysinstall which will do everything for the main install. Then you will probably want to csup(1) both the base system and the ports tree and rebuild the base according to the handbook. Then install your ports. Finally restore your backups. Or, if you are completely happy with what is currently on the machine and you just want to reorder the partition sizes, then you don't even have to really do any install. Just do the backups, use the 'fixit' disk to run bsdlabel to make the partitions. Newfs(8) the new partitions. Then restore the backups over the top of things. > The reason for wanting to re-install is because I only have on big > slice that covers the > entire harddrive and I don't want that. Primarily I would like to have > /usr/local > in a separate slice. Really in a separate slice?? Or do you mean a separate partition. It is possible that you used only a slice and no partitions, but it is not the usual thing. That is kind of halfway to what they call a 'dangerously dedicated' disk in the handbook. Maybe you could call it a dangerously dedicates slice. It isn't really dangerous, but it limits some things you can do and for the disk, makes it so some types of things (that you most likely would never run in to) could not access it. So, Remember, in FreeBSD slices are the primary divisions (identified as 1..4) of the disk and partitions (identified as a..h) are subdivisions of slices. Presuming you are using SATA or IDE disk, the drive is ad0, or if you are using SCSI or SAS disk, the drive is da0. The first single slice is either ad0s1 (or da0s1 for SCSI) thus the 's' in 's1'. Then in s1 you can have partitions a..h except c is reserved, b is best used for swap and a needs to be root. If you have a single slice and no partition, then you would be mounting all of /dev/ad0s1 as /. If you have partitions, then you would be mounting /dev/ad0s1a as /. In any case, it is easy to modify. The only reason you might want a separate second slice on a machine that is only running one version of FreeBSD is if you have used up all the partitions available in slice 1. Do a df -k to see what slices and partitions are in use. If you have partitions use bsdlabel to look at the label in more detail. From root, do:bsdlabel ad0s1 (or da0s1 for SCSI or SAS) Think about how you want the disk divided before you get into the middle of it. If the new /usr/local partition would be too big to fit in the new /usr partition along with the regular /usr stuff, then you will have to split them up before doing the backups. In that case, use tar(1) to make a file that contains all of /usr/local, then rm(1) the contents of /usr/local, then do the backups and go from there - use the bsdlabel from the fixit to rebuild the partitions (and newfs each of them), restore everything over the top, mount that new /usr/local (make sure you still have a /usr/local mount point and that you fix up /etc/fstab for it) and untar that ball you make of /usr/local. If there is plenty of room for it to be in the new /usr temporarily, then just do the backups and then use bsdlabel from the fixit to rebuild the partitions, newfs them and restore them from backups. Then rename the current /usr/local to get it out of the way, remake the /usr/local mountpoint, mount it and then use tar to copy everything from the old /usr/local to the new one. Check it out and then rm the old /usr/local. Again, presuming you have direct access to the machine, Make your backups and put them somewhere away from what you are doing - on tape, or a big USB drive or another machine's disk, etc. I vote for a big cheap USB drive if your machine supports it. Once you have readable backup -- and that /usr/local split out in a separate tar file, if it would be too big, then put in the CD with the fixit. There is a
Re: APM
On 11/13/09, Chuck Swiger wrote: > Hi-- > > On Nov 13, 2009, at 12:15 PM, James Phillips wrote: >> I initially set the time-out to 60 seconds, then 300 seconds in a >> vain attempt to see the actual power savings. With a 900 second time- >> out, the drive only spun down once in the past 12 hours. >> >> It appears that syslogd can defer *one* log entry. Understandable, >> since you don't want to loose too many logs in a power failure. > > One of the first things you should consider is either disabling > syslogd entirely, or else setup logging to a RAMdisk (ie, have an > initial copy of what's in /var on the hard disk, setup a RAMdisk and > mount as /var, then copy over the /var tree from hard drive to RAMdisk > during early stages of system boot). There are options available in /etc/defaults/rc.conf to do just that, but how does one copy over the contents of /var at system boot? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
vpn or adhoc
hi all... wondering if somebody has done vpn between a bsd box and a portable device running windows mobile. is it possible? looking at the wireless networking off the handbook gives a direct example with 2 bsd machines. the bsd machine and the wireless device are hooked up now adhoc. they always going to be close to each other and there is no need of infrastructure mode at present time. if vpn is an overkill in this case what would be the best way to lock down the adhoc connection to be only between this two piers and isolate anybody else that wants to get on... thanks ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: APM
Hi, David-- On Nov 13, 2009, at 2:48 PM, David Allen wrote: There are options available in /etc/defaults/rc.conf to do just that, but how does one copy over the contents of /var at system boot? I'd consider adding something to /etc/rc.d/mountcritlocal (which normally mounts the local filesystems) to setup a RAMdisk on /var and then do "rsync -a /var_template /var" (or use a dump/restore or tar pipeline). Regards, -- -Chuck ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: Remote re-installation of current FreeBSD system.
On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 05:12:06PM -0500, Jerry McAllister wrote: > On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 03:28:04PM -0500, Roger wrote: > > > Hello all, > > > > I'm in control of a dedicated server and I would like to re-install FreeBSD. > > I found the following guide: > > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/remote-install/ > > which seems to cover pretty much all should need but it assumes that > > I have some other OS (linux) installed, since I have FreeBSD 7.2-p4 I wonder > > if maybe there is an easier way. > > Well, you say a dedicated server, but you do not say it is remote. > The article is for a remote install - that is, one where you cannot > put your hands on the actual machine. I just noticed your subject line. You should really put all relevant information in the body of your post and not depend on the subject line doing any more than filtering. Anyway, if it is really remote, then take that article seriously but for only one disk, forget the gmirror raid stuff. jerry ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: APM
On 11/13/09, Chuck Swiger wrote: > Hi, David-- > > On Nov 13, 2009, at 2:48 PM, David Allen wrote: >> There are options available in /etc/defaults/rc.conf to do just that, >> but how does one copy over the contents of /var at system boot? > > I'd consider adding something to /etc/rc.d/mountcritlocal (which > normally mounts the local filesystems) to setup a RAMdisk on /var and > then do "rsync -a /var_template /var" (or use a dump/restore or tar > pipeline). At the risk of sounding obtuse while asking for more help, I can work out the rsync or dump part, but the rest I don't get. The mountcritremote essentially just does a mount -a -t ..., yes? To insert a few mdmfs commands followed by rsync commands, for example, would require re-writing most the script. Is there a better place to this? The reason I ask is that some time ago I had a look at nanobsd which is designed to run on RO flash media. The /var and /tmp directories are created as memory devices that supposedly get re-populated from a /cfg directory at boot. The /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd/nanobsd.sh setup script has a function named setup_nanobsd_etc. Essentially, it writes out an /etc/fstab file and does a 'touch /etc/diskless'. Unless there's magic that happens behind the scenes with that /etc/diskless file, I don't see how anything gets re-populated. Put simply, I'm stuck somewhere between that script and your suggestions thus far. Thanks. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: APM
Hi--
On Nov 13, 2009, at 3:54 PM, David Allen wrote:
I'd consider adding something to /etc/rc.d/mountcritlocal (which
normally mounts the local filesystems) to setup a RAMdisk on /var and
then do "rsync -a /var_template /var" (or use a dump/restore or tar
pipeline).
At the risk of sounding obtuse while asking for more help, I can work
out the rsync or dump part, but the rest I don't get. The
mountcritremote essentially just does a mount -a -t ..., yes? To
insert a few mdmfs commands followed by rsync commands, for example,
would require re-writing most the script. Is there a better place to
this?
Quite possibly. I used NetBSD for a flash-based Soerkris boxes a
while back, rather than NanoBSD. It looks like reading /etc/
rc.initdiskless might be informative.
The reason I ask is that some time ago I had a look at nanobsd which
is designed to run on RO flash media. The /var and /tmp directories
are created as memory devices that supposedly get re-populated from a
/cfg directory at boot.
Right...
The /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd/nanobsd.sh setup script has a
function named setup_nanobsd_etc. Essentially, it writes out an
/etc/fstab file and does a 'touch /etc/diskless'. Unless there's
magic that happens behind the scenes with that /etc/diskless file, I
don't see how anything gets re-populated.
The existence of /etc/diskless means /etc/rc runs /etc/rc.initdiskless:
% grep diskless /etc/rc
dlv=`/sbin/sysctl -n vfs.nfs.diskless_valid 2> /dev/null`
if [ ${dlv:=0} -ne 0 -o -f /etc/diskless ]; then
sh /etc/rc.initdiskless
# Run these after determining whether we are booting diskless in order
# to minimize the number of files that are needed on a diskless system,
Regards,
--
-Chuck
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Re: APM
On 11/13/09, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> Hi--
>
> On Nov 13, 2009, at 3:54 PM, David Allen wrote:
>>> I'd consider adding something to /etc/rc.d/mountcritlocal (which
>>> normally mounts the local filesystems) to setup a RAMdisk on /var and
>>> then do "rsync -a /var_template /var" (or use a dump/restore or tar
>>> pipeline).
>>
>> At the risk of sounding obtuse while asking for more help, I can work
>> out the rsync or dump part, but the rest I don't get. The
>> mountcritremote essentially just does a mount -a -t ..., yes? To
>> insert a few mdmfs commands followed by rsync commands, for example,
>> would require re-writing most the script. Is there a better place to
>> this?
>
> Quite possibly. I used NetBSD for a flash-based Soerkris boxes a
> while back, rather than NanoBSD. It looks like reading /etc/
> rc.initdiskless might be informative.
>
>> The reason I ask is that some time ago I had a look at nanobsd which
>> is designed to run on RO flash media. The /var and /tmp directories
>> are created as memory devices that supposedly get re-populated from a
>> /cfg directory at boot.
>
> Right...
>
>> The /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd/nanobsd.sh setup script has a
>> function named setup_nanobsd_etc. Essentially, it writes out an
>> /etc/fstab file and does a 'touch /etc/diskless'. Unless there's
>> magic that happens behind the scenes with that /etc/diskless file, I
>> don't see how anything gets re-populated.
>
> The existence of /etc/diskless means /etc/rc runs /etc/rc.initdiskless:
Aaaargh! For those following along at home, that's
/etc/rc.initdiskless
and not
/etc/rc.d/somethingdiskless
> % grep diskless /etc/rc
> dlv=`/sbin/sysctl -n vfs.nfs.diskless_valid 2> /dev/null`
> if [ ${dlv:=0} -ne 0 -o -f /etc/diskless ]; then
> sh /etc/rc.initdiskless
> # Run these after determining whether we are booting diskless in order
> # to minimize the number of files that are needed on a diskless system,
The answer finally appears!
A note to the OP. The only way I've found to keep a disk spun down
under FreeBSD is using memory devices for both /var and /tmp.
Disabling syslogd isn't enough, nor is modifying /etc/crontab, root's
crontab (or even disabling cron) to limit disk access. But to use
memory devices and have a "normal" system, you'll need to re-populate
both /var and /tmp at startup. Which, it turns out, means starting
with /etc/diskless.
Someone should add a section named "Non-Diskless Diskless Operation"
to the Handbook.
Thanks again for all the help!
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Re: APM
I was going to just respond to myself again, but I see I generated some
discussion :)
Anyway, In the
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=1012
page at least two people mentioned the ATAidle utility. It is not recommended
for the same reason APM isn't: devices sleep without OS consent.
Anyway, I now know the drive saves 5W spun down because this command has
immediate effect:
# ataidle -o /dev/ad4
Followed shortly by:
Nov 13 16:51:11 dusty kernel: ad4: TIMEOUT-WRITE=DMA retrying (1 retry left)
LBA=23261855
I settled on (But using the rc.conf format):
ataidle -I 6 -S 10 /dev/ad4
because I think the "Idle timer" (minutes) and "Supsend timer" (minutes) stack
to 16 minutes. Setting the suspend time has an effect of immediately spinning
down the disk though (mentioned in the man page)
No logging means I have to figure out how often the drive spins up/down using
other means. (I don't think the wake from idle (disk seems to keep spinning) or
suspend triggers a message.)
Chuck wrote:
":You might also want to note that 2.5" laptop drives are/should be explicitly
designed to spin down and park themselves much more often than generic IDE
drives are; some generic desktop drives will fail quite rapidly (ie, in a
matter of months) if you attempt to spin them down many times a day.:"
I suspect they are rated for a set number of power-on cycles. If (say) 5
shutdowns/day kills the drive in months, it must be rated for something like
1000. (hmm, I should look it up.)
Ideally, I want 1-5 shutdowns a day, depending on use. I know for a fact I want
the drives shutdown when the server is "idling" for hours at a time. When set
for a 15 minute time out (with atacontrol), the drive was not getting spurious
shut-downs.
--- On Fri, 11/13/09, David Allen wrote:
>
> > % grep diskless /etc/rc
> > dlv=`/sbin/sysctl -n vfs.nfs.diskless_valid 2>
> /dev/null`
> > if [ ${dlv:=0} -ne 0 -o -f /etc/diskless ]; then
> > sh /etc/rc.initdiskless
> > # Run these after determining whether we are booting
> diskless in order
> > # to minimize the number of files that are needed on a
> diskless system,
>
> The answer finally appears!
>
> A note to the OP. The only way I've found to keep a
> disk spun down
> under FreeBSD is using memory devices for both /var and
> /tmp.
> Disabling syslogd isn't enough, nor is modifying
> /etc/crontab, root's
> crontab (or even disabling cron) to limit disk
> access. But to use
> memory devices and have a "normal" system, you'll need to
> re-populate
> both /var and /tmp at startup. Which, it
> turns out, means starting
> with /etc/diskless.
I think I thought of that (putting /var/log in RAM) on my own: it does not
really fit what my server does though: it is a file server.
I have about 5-6GB set aside (big enough to hold a DVD image) for /var and
/tmp, and only 256MB of memory. Backing the ramdisk with swap defeats the
purpose.
Chuck wrote:
"rsync -a /var_template /var"
That is only half the battle: you need a way to flush it to disk when it
actually spins up; else risk loosing log data (In the event of power/hardware
failure).
I suppose a cron job backing up periodic filesytem snapshots is possible, but
you would have to trigger on the number of interrupts seen by the disk or
something to avoid waking it. I was thinking /proc/interrupts , but that is a
Linux feature :P
Do the messages from spinning the disk back up (with atacontrol) have any
hooks? I suppose if you are desperate, you can (tail+) grep /var/log/messages.
> Someone should add a section named "Non-Diskless
> Diskless Operation"
> to the Handbook.
I like to think what I am doing (with 10 year old hardware) is "cutting edge
research." That is to say, the normal mode of operation for servers is to hold
your nose and let them run 24/7. It is more reliable that way.
The current trend for mitigating that waste of energy is consolidation. If you
can put a dozen servers in one box, hopefully only 1 or 2 will be active at
once.
However, I think drivers and hardware (like NICs with WOL) may have matured to
the point that it is possible to run "non-critical" servers (and desktops) in
such a way that they only turn on when needed. Suspend mode for the newer
desktops here draw only ~3watts: comparable to the power-off (soft-off) state.
> Thanks again for all the help!
>
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Re: Remote re-installation of current FreeBSD system.
A little sidenote: On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:28:04 -0500, Roger wrote: > The reason for wanting to re-install is because I only have on big > slice that covers the > entire harddrive and I don't want that. Primarily I would like to have > /usr/local > in a separate slice. In most cases, you set up one slice covering the whole disk, and then partition it, giving functional parts an own partition, such as /, /var, /tmp, /usr (including or intendedly excluding /usr/local) and /home. Those are partitions, not slices. As far as I know, there's no advantage in adding additional slices to that concept. A slice is a "DOS primary partition", while a partition is just a subdivision (i. e. an own file system) inside a slice. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: Remote re-installation of current FreeBSD system.
Polytropon wrote: > A little sidenote: > > On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:28:04 -0500, Roger wrote: > >> The reason for wanting to re-install is because I only have on big >> slice that covers the >> entire harddrive and I don't want that. Primarily I would like to have >> /usr/local >> in a separate slice. >> > > In most cases, you set up one slice covering the whole disk, > and then partition it, giving functional parts an own > partition, such as /, /var, /tmp, /usr (including or intendedly > excluding /usr/local) and /home. Those are partitions, not > slices. > > As far as I know, there's no advantage in adding additional slices > to that concept. > > A slice is a "DOS primary partition", while a partition is > just a subdivision (i. e. an own file system) inside a slice. > > > It seems however that some dedicated servers are setup using a single slice and a single partition, i.e. having /usr /var and /tmp as subdirectories in / instead of separate filesystems. I was once administering a server setup in this way - the hosting company would only perform this kind of install (they probably had a ready image or dump and would not change it). If the OP cares to share his /etc/fstab, it will become obvious if this is the case. If there are already separate partitions inside the slice, I'd agree there is no compelling reason to move to a multiple slice system. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
