About the storage for fog server in Ubuntu

[weidongyan]

Hi team, I got a old machine with four hard drivers. I want to install Ubuntu and run fog server on it. And I want to use all four hard drivers for the storage. I am installing Ubuntu in one of the hard driver, and try to create a storage pool for fog server using the other three hard drivers. Do I need to create a storage pool for fog server? I mean if I did not create the storage pool, will fog server still use the other three drivers for storage? What I learned from Internet is to create a RAIDZ ZFS storage pool. I am not sure if it gonna work or not.

[george1421]

If your old computer is a server with a physical raid card, that is your easiest solution.

If you don’t have a hardware raid card then it gets a little more complicated. You can either setup a software raid using mdadm in ubuntu. If you don’t care about data loss you can setup a raid-0 configuration to stripe all of the drives. If you do care about data loss then use raid-1 (2 drives) or raid-5 (3 drives with 2 data drives and one parity drive). then mount that raid volume to /images (before fog is installed)
You can also use LVM and add the 3 drives to the LVM pool where the root directory is mounted. Again this approach doesn’t protect against data loss of a single disk.

There are a number of ways to go about it some easier than others.

[Sebastian Roth]

@weidongyan As mentioned there are different ways of doing this. I myself would tend to use a proper hardware RAID controller or use LVM. The later one doesn’t cost any money, is pretty flexible and easier to use than software RAID (a.k.a. mdadm in Linux) from my point of view. But that’s just what I am used to.

I just want to emphasize what George already mentioned. Make sure you simply mount the storage you create from those disks in path /images in your FOG server and life will be pretty easy from the FOG side.

[weidongyan]

@Sebastian-Roth Hi, Sebastian, I just created one storage pool and it is mounted in the path of /storage-pool. So right now I need to install fog server and move the storage pool to /images. Is that right? How could I move the storage? I am new about this.

[george1421]

@weidongyan What does your /etc/fstab look like? (post it here).

Really before you install fog you want to mount your storage pool over the /images directory so your storage pool will look transparent to FOG. The FOG installer script does a lot of things to make sure your FOG image repository is setup correctly, that is why its important to have the /images directory created and then your storage pool mounted to /images.

[weidongyan]

@george1421 ```

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=007d0276-b64f-4252-95bc-ca3867b64211 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
/swapfile                                 none            swap    sw              0       0

[weidongyan]

@george1421 when I created the storage pool, it automatically created at the path of /storage-pool/, how could I change the path of it to the /images? just copy the fold to /images?

[weidongyan]

@george1421 https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vDs7csLf08NkDHtVM_TXx--ujKXipVOc

You can see that in the root there is a fold called storage-pool

[Sebastian Roth]

@weidongyan Well from the fstab you posted it doesn’t look like your storage pool is going to be mounted at all. Run the following two commands and post the output you get here:

lsblk
mount
df -h

[weidongyan]

@Sebastian-Roth

~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0    7:0    0    91M  1 loop /snap/core/6350
loop1    7:1    0  34.6M  1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/818
loop2    7:2    0 140.7M  1 loop /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/74
loop3    7:3    0   2.3M  1 loop /snap/gnome-calculator/260
loop4    7:4    0    13M  1 loop /snap/gnome-characters/139
loop5    7:5    0  14.5M  1 loop /snap/gnome-logs/45
loop6    7:6    0   3.7M  1 loop /snap/gnome-system-monitor/57
sda      8:0    0   149G  0 disk 
└─sda1   8:1    0   149G  0 part /
sdb      8:16   0 232.9G  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   0 232.9G  0 part 
└─sdb9   8:25   0     8M  0 part 
sdc      8:32   0 232.9G  0 disk 
├─sdc1   8:33   0 232.8G  0 part 
└─sdc9   8:41   0     8M  0 part 
sdd      8:48   0 232.9G  0 disk 
├─sdd1   8:49   0 232.8G  0 part 
└─sdd9   8:57   0     8M  0 part 

~$ mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=3020640k,nr_inodes=755160,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=610372k,mode=755)
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/unified type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/rdma type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,rdma)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=25,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=14145)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime,pagesize=2M)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/debug/tracing type tracefs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/user/121 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=610368k,mode=700,uid=121,gid=125)
/var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_6350.snap on /snap/core/6350 type squashfs (ro,nodev,relatime,x-gdu.hide)
/var/lib/snapd/snaps/gtk-common-themes_818.snap on /snap/gtk-common-themes/818 type squashfs (ro,nodev,relatime,x-gdu.hide)
/var/lib/snapd/snaps/gnome-3-26-1604_74.snap on /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/74 type squashfs (ro,nodev,relatime,x-gdu.hide)
/var/lib/snapd/snaps/gnome-calculator_260.snap on /snap/gnome-calculator/260 type squashfs (ro,nodev,relatime,x-gdu.hide)
/var/lib/snapd/snaps/gnome-characters_139.snap on /snap/gnome-characters/139 type squashfs (ro,nodev,relatime,x-gdu.hide)
/var/lib/snapd/snaps/gnome-logs_45.snap on /snap/gnome-logs/45 type squashfs (ro,nodev,relatime,x-gdu.hide)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=610368k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
/var/lib/snapd/snaps/gnome-system-monitor_57.snap on /snap/gnome-system-monitor/57 type squashfs (ro,nodev,relatime,x-gdu.hide)
storage-pool on /storage-pool type zfs (rw,xattr,noacl)
sunrpc on /run/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw,relatime)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw,relatime)


~$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            2.9G     0  2.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           597M  1.9M  595M   1% /run
/dev/sda1       146G  7.5G  131G   6% /
tmpfs           3.0G   97M  2.9G   4% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs           3.0G     0  3.0G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs           597M   28K  597M   1% /run/user/121
/dev/loop0       91M   91M     0 100% /snap/core/6350
/dev/loop1       35M   35M     0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/818
/dev/loop2      141M  141M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/74
/dev/loop3      2.3M  2.3M     0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/260
/dev/loop4       13M   13M     0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/139
/dev/loop5       15M   15M     0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/45
tmpfs           597M   72K  596M   1% /run/user/1000
/dev/loop6      3.8M  3.8M     0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/57
storage-pool    450G     0  450G   0% /storage-pool

[Sebastian Roth]

@weidongyan Ok, I see, you decided to use ZFS. You should be able to adjust the mount point of that ZFS storage pool following the instructions here: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/819-5461/gaztn/index.html

As well please run zpool status and post output here.

[weidongyan]

@Sebastian-Roth

~$ zfs get mountpoint storage-pool 
NAME          PROPERTY    VALUE       SOURCE
storage-pool  mountpoint  /images     local


~$ zpool status
  pool: storage-pool
 state: ONLINE
  scan: none requested
config:

	NAME          STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	storage-pool  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz1-0    ONLINE       0     0     0
	    sdb       ONLINE       0     0     0
	    sdc       ONLINE       0     0     0
	    sdd       ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

Did I succeed to mount the pool?

[weidongyan]

@george1421 Hi, George. Right now I found that the directory /images has been created and fog server has been installed. Is there any way to fix this to use the storage pool that I created? I did not mount the volume before the installation of fog server.

[george1421]

@weidongyan So what does dh -h show at the moment?

[weidongyan]

@george1421

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            2.9G     0  2.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           597M  2.0M  595M   1% /run
/dev/sda1       146G  8.5G  130G   7% /
tmpfs           3.0G   19M  2.9G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs           3.0G     0  3.0G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop8      3.8M  3.8M     0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/57
/dev/loop0      2.3M  2.3M     0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/260
/dev/loop5      3.8M  3.8M     0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/100
/dev/loop6       35M   35M     0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/818
/dev/loop1       91M   91M     0 100% /snap/core/6350
/dev/loop9      4.2M  4.2M     0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/406
/dev/loop10      15M   15M     0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/296
/dev/loop11     1.0M  1.0M     0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/61
/dev/loop12      13M   13M     0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/139
/dev/loop15      15M   15M     0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/45
/dev/loop13      89M   89M     0 100% /snap/core/7270
/dev/loop14      43M   43M     0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1313
/dev/loop7      141M  141M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/74
/dev/loop2      150M  150M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/67
/dev/loop3       55M   55M     0 100% /snap/core18/1066
/dev/loop4      141M  141M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/90
tmpfs           597M   32K  597M   1% /run/user/121
tmpfs           597M   44K  597M   1% /run/user/1000
storage-pool    450G     0  450G   0% /image

[weidongyan]

@george1421 I realized that I mounted the storage-pool after the installation of fog server and the /images has some folders there before I mounted. Should I uninstall fog server to start again?

[george1421]

@weidongyan Well I don’t see your storage pool mounted anywhere.

What does lsblk show?

Wait you change the post I see the /images mounted now. Rerun the fog installer with the /images mounted now. That should fix the /images directory.

[george1421]

After the fog installer is complete run this command ls -la /images and post the results here.

[weidongyan]

@george1421

total 16
drwxrwxrwx  4 fogproject root 4096 Aug  1 14:21 .
drwxr-xr-x 30 root       root 4096 Aug  2 09:38 ..
drwxrwxrwx  4 fogproject root 4096 Aug  1 16:37 dev
-rwxrwxrwx  1 fogproject root    0 Aug  1 14:21 .mntcheck
drwxrwxrwx  2 fogproject root 4096 Aug  1 14:21 postdownloadscripts

[george1421]

@weidongyan ok that’s good. The FOG images directory is setup correctly. Now as long as after a reboot the /images directory is mounted then you should be good to go.