Anyone think installing OS13.x as working server for home lab is risky?

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

as the subj. says any one think installing OS13.x as working server for home lab is risky?
I am building out a File/VM server for home.
the main use will be:

  1. File server for my media collection using SAMBA/NFS
    and a dataStore based on 2x3T drives with BTRFS in RAID-1 config but moving to RAID-6 when have 4+ drives, will expand as needed.

  2. a VM server using Xen for hosting couple of VMs for running transmission + sick beard + coach potato + subznb
    a disposable VM for Internet surfing
    and pfSence to replace my router.

  3. will probably add DC/AD functionality with DNS and DHCP as well. I think Xen Dom0 should function as DHCP server since it is the first to start on boot up. and DNS also.

I have been having some issue with OS12.3 as it does not seam to play well with BTRFS and some of the servers I tried to setup on it for Xen GUI support. I do not like CLI hence my choice of OpenSuse for base server as I think it has the best GUI functionality over all especially Yast for configuration.
this is the first distro, I came upon that would allow me total setup using GUI for everything I want to do.
I mean I still think that some informational stuff is still better in CLI but nevertheless very nice look and feel.

from what I have been reading over this forum and other places version 13.1 have lots of improvement that include better BTRFS support and other basic upgrades. I am thinking to just trying out but time is an essence as I do not have lot’s of time to play around. so can anyone tell me if 13.x is stable enough to try to build a working server on it?
I mean there is always bugs and stuff but if they are present in 13.x they probably also in 12.3.

thanks…

#2

Ultimately, only you can decide if it is stable enough.

RC2 is now out. I’d suggest you start with that, though I have not yet tested it. But do plan to update to 13.1 final, when that is released.

I can’t make your decision for you. But, if I were in your position, I would probably go with 13.1.

#3

You’ve obviously put a great deal of thought into this project, and you plan to put in a great deal of time setting it up… Why use an RC version known to be "not ready for prime time?

Personally I wait a minimum of a month, preferably more, before using a new release for anything other than play and/or testing. Before I load a new version on anything I intend to use for work I wait and watch these forums to see what kind of experience others are having before I commit to the new release.

Remember, no matter how much testing the RC version gets the final will get much, much more exposure to varied circumstances in the period right after release, and I like to wait until patches are available for any nasty surprises I might encounter.

#4

On 2013-10-31, vl1969 <vl1969@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> so can anyone
> tell me if 13.x is stable enough to try to build a working server on it?

If stability is requirement of a mission-critical server, I believe only a very brave person would try anything other
than a final release, and here I use the word `brave’ as a euphemism.

> I mean there is always bugs and stuff but if they are present in 13.x
> they probably also in 12.3.

That is of course speculation. I would argue the converse to be true. Bug reports from 12.3 will obviously make 13.x
better, but 13.x will have new features that constitute a much more likely source of bugs.

#5

On 2013-10-31 12:56, vl1969 wrote:
>
> as the subj. says any one think installing OS13.x as working server for
> home lab is risky?

First, nomenclature.

There is no such thing as 13.x. There are no major-minor number in the
openSUSE distribution. There is 13.1, there will be 13.2, there will be
13.3, there will be 14.1, and all of them are major versions.

And, 13.1 is an LTS be the Evergreen project.

Or will be 13.1 is not yet released. You would have to wait before
installing 13.1 for anything but testing it.

> I have been having some issue with OS12.3 as it does not seam to play
> well with BTRFS

btrfs is green on any version. IMO.

I have been able to crash btrfs partitions consistently. On 12.3 the
kernel crashed, on 13.1 the partition was unrecoverable, needing reformat.

> from what I have been reading over this forum and other places version
> 13.1 have lots of improvement that include better BTRFS support and
> other basic upgrades. I am thinking to just trying out but time is an
> essence as I do not have lot’s of time to play around. so can anyone
> tell me if 13.x is stable enough to try to build a working server on it?
> I mean there is always bugs and stuff but if they are present in 13.x
> they probably also in 12.3.

Linux makes you pay with time and effort on your side, you’d better have
that clear. All distributions and all releases. Arguably less so on
commercial editions.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

#6

thank you for all your replies.
will be watching for other to chime in as well :slight_smile:

although I do agree that using the RC is not 100% safe most of the time, I am still looking into it just so I can make a better decision on what to do next.

my ultimate goal is to replace my UnRaid server with a Linux based File server that also doubles as VM server.
initially this project started so I can virtualize the UnRaid and have a good VM server + UnRaid Media server.
but I did not do a good research on the hardware since unRaid have some specialized needs to run properly
my VR plans where sinked.

after doing some more extensive research on what else I can do, I cam across ZFS and products using it,
I also found BTRFS and like what I see.

it seams that BTRFS is perfect system for home use media server/backup systems.
it offers most if not all features ZFS does but IMHO doing it better. don’t want to start the discussion here on merits of ZFS over BTRFS or Vice Versa but I think BTRFS offers very good alternative to other FS
and very very good alternative to RAID/LVM setups.
it also provides a very nice alternative for UnRaid if you can set it up properly.
the main points are (and it is apply to me mostly but my look good to others as well)
a. Unraid offers a centralized file store like NAS with advantage of using a mixed HDD in a pool setup
with specific shares available to users.
while providing high availability and data protection using single Parity.

you can use disks of any size with provision that Parity disk is the largest in the system.
all sounds very good, but it is a limited system and going with a single parity protection for over 10T kind of risky. also it is proprietary locked to the usb key and not fixed/updated very timely.

in contrast using a regular Linux distro with BTRFS seams better.
a. you get a normal open source system much more capable and scalable to your liking.
b. you can choose what this system can do at your own pace and pleasure.
c. BTRFS offer you same scalability as unRaid in terms of using mixed disks but with better performance
and you also have choice of protection measures level you wish.
you want RAID-1 go right ahead, RAID -5/6/10 just add disks and convert.
share your data in any way you like, SAMBA, NFS, FTP, all three no problem
you are only limited by your hardware and skills level.

so here I am.

you see OpenSuse is new to me, as in 100% new.
I played around with Ubuntu before including Mint and LSE
but like Suse for it GUI and the fact that it actually accepts BTRFS mainstream.
but I am having some issues with setting it up in the way I like.
and hope that 13.1 have addressed the issues I am having problem with already.
like working with BTRFS in Yast as an example. it does not do expected things most of the time when trying to setup pools. and not much of options are given in working with FS at all.

also virtualization is hit and miss. I had hosed the system several times trying to setup Xen.
for me this is a one time deal. once the main system is up and running the way I like, I am not planning to do anything with it. except adding new VMs.

#7

You should report any problem you have with BTRFS since not many are using it yet and even those that use it may not be using some of its advanced features and if someone does not report problems there is less chance of getting them fixed. It is the price we pay for a free OS that we need to report problems.

Personally I don’t plan on using it in the near future to me BTRFS is still too unstable and ext4 has been a rock here.

#8

I do agree with you 100%.
but I am sure I have seen same or similar issues already reported.
and they are not really issue with BTRFS but more of annoyances with the way Yast doing things when you try to setup a pool FS.

like I am trying to build a BTRFS pool on 2 drives.
in Yast/partitioner I have to go to on drive, add BTRFS partition and mount it.
go to the second drive and add BTRFS partition but not choose format or mount option

than go into Partitioner BTRFS option choose the first partition (the one formated and mounted) and resize it adding the second one.

and after all of that I end up either with a pool of not raided disks in single configuration.
there are no settings anywhere during all that setup where I can select if I want raid or not, what type raid I want, etc.

also the OS itself does not recognize BTRFS pools properly,
in File manager I see both drives as individual volumes but can only mount one of them as the other is part of the pool and not accessible.

stuff like that…

as for using BTRFS, well Ext4 does not give me features I am looking for,
normal RAID and LVM also do not have it.

so I am stuck with either trying to setup unRaid VM and continue to use it if I can
or give up the idea and just load unRaid on this hardware straight and not getting my money worth out of it.

I will try my way first. I have been reading many good reviews on BTRFS from people using it for several years now with no issues. most of my data I want to keep there is replaceable
and the one thats not will be written to DVDs as backup (if it is not already there.)

#9

just want to add some thing else to the mix.
I have enouther reason wanting to move to the 13.1 and that is problems with Network setup on OS 12.3
I have a fully functional setup of OS 12.3 but every time I reboot I loose the network connectivity because my NIC interfaces get renamed at random.
what used to be eth2 can become any number at will.
since I want to run pfSense as a router on the setup , I have 4 NICs,2 on-board and 1 dual port Intel card.
I have tried everything I can think of, the rules should be using MAC or BUS as identifier
but they do not work. every reboot(and at the moment I do reboot often as I am applying updates, installing and configuring stuff) I loose the network and have to reapply the rules to the NIC-Name “du’jure”
I have read that it was fixed in 13.1.

#10

On Fri 01 Nov 2013 12:26:02 PM CDT, vl1969 wrote:

just want to add some thing else to the mix.
I have enouther reason wanting to move to the 13.1 and that is problems
with Network setup on OS 12.3
I have a fully functional setup of OS 12.3 but every time I reboot I
loose the network connectivity because my NIC interfaces get renamed at
random.
what used to be eth2 can become any number at will.
since I want to run pfSense as a router on the setup , I have 4 NICs,2
on-board and 1 dual port Intel card.
I have tried everything I can think of, the rules should be using MAC or
BUS as identifier
but they do not work. every reboot(and at the moment I do reboot often
as I am applying updates, installing and configuring stuff) I loose the
network and have to reapply the rules to the NIC-Name “du’jure”
I have read that it was fixed in 13.1.

Hi
Then you will possibly want to read this then…
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/PredictableNetworkInterfaceNames/

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#11

On 2013-10-31 15:06, vl1969 wrote:
> you can use disks of any size with provision that Parity disk is the
> largest in the system.
> all sounds very good, but it is a limited system and going with a single
> parity protection for over 10T kind of risky. also it is proprietary
> locked to the usb key and not fixed/updated very timely.

BTRFS is limited to less than 15 TB

It does not work well with very large databases or huge files, you have
to disable COW.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

#12

it works just fine with large files that do not change often.
it only have issues with large datafiles that change often, like database files which change all the time.

Am I missing something or you are :slight_smile: ?

last time I heard 1EiB = 1 048 576 terabytes

Limits
Max. file size 16 EiB (8 EiB under Linux due to a kernel limit)
Max. volume size 16 EiB (16,384 petabytes)
The main Btrfs features available at the moment include:
2^64 byte == 16 EiB maximum file size

#13

On 2013-11-01 14:26, vl1969 wrote:
>
> Am I missing something or you are :slight_smile: ?
>
> last time I heard 1EiB = 1 048 576 terabytes
>
> Limits
> Max. file size 16 EiB (8 EiB under Linux due to a kernel limit)
> Max. volume size 16 EiB (16,384 petabytes)
> The main Btrfs features available at the moment include:
> 2^64 byte == 16 EiB maximum file size

That’s the theoretical limit. In fact, the real, current, limit is 15 TB
or TiB (not sure) for btrfs filesystem. Blame bugs. You can find recent
threads about this in the factory mail list.


http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2013-10/msg00384.html

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

#14

well that is per volume. I do not mind having several pools on my server if it ever get to it.
I plan to do that anyway now when I only have about 8T-10T worth of drives.

#15

I’m confused. There seems to be a consensus that it would be a terribly risky and problematic choice for a variety of valid reasons, yet you continue to argue in favor of the choice.

So… Why did you take the time to post the question?

(I don’t mean to sound sarcastic here. I really am confused.)

#16

am not arguing about the choice, at the end it is mine to make after all.
I am trying to get a well rounded opinion(s) about it.
yes we all agree that installing an RC is risky. I know that.
what I am trying to get a feel of is, might the improvement that are now in RC , be considered worthy of the risk since it is not businesses/production system.
also some of the discussion here about specific features that lead me to use OpenSuse in general. like BTRFS.
I also read the pre release forum and see lots of praises for all the improvements done to the system.

this is a discussion forum, isn’t it?
as in have a nice friendly chat with people about a common interest.
get an opinion, get some help.

all reason given against is noted and taken in account.
but I do try to provoke more detailed responses and also clear up my reasons for the question if/when needed. so a person who is against this action would look at it and maybe say, Aha I see better now why he wants to do this and maybe it make sense, or not.

trust me, I am not posting here for fun.
even though it is my home system, I want to be done as soon as possible with it.
I have much more interesting things to do than play with file server setup.

#17

hello again everyone,

just want to touch base and do a little update here.
since I hosed my 12.3 install (don’t ask)
I figure I have nothing to loose, so I went ahead and installed a 13.1 RC2 on my server.
it was late at night , I was tired and all so I drop a full desktop install on it thus I will be rebuilding it later with light server setup.
BUT let me tell you, it is very very good even if a bit slow some times. but that could just be me.

first it worked form the get go, network and all (I like the new network device naming schema BTW)
I run full setup nice and easy, no issues or hiccups.
updates all run fast and with absolutely no issues, zypper up / zypper dup fast and error free with no intraction form me what so ever.

Xen installed went the same, no issues no errors.
VM management is even better now, I was able to create SME VM in half hour from 0 to full install.
the VM management in 12.3 does not work as well as in 13.1. it just doesn’t.

there are several things that IHMO is still not fixed, or it could be just my lack of understanding.
the network setup is a little bit buggy when it comes to bridging. had to restart the server and twikit manually after Xen install for it to work, nothing major or anything but if I already have a fully configured connection I think bridge util should be able to convert the setup with no manual interaction required.

BTRFS support is also not 100% hasle free. again It coul be my lack of understanding of the way linux works with storage in general here, but I tried to create a multiDevice BTRFS volume and it strange.

I have 5 HHD in the system
2x1TB
1x2T
2x3T

I have setup like :

<Drive#> x<Size> </name>
</partition#> – <“mount as”> <FS> <partitionSize>

1x1T /sda
/sda1 – “/boot” Ext4 1GB
/sda2 – “/swap” swap 4GB

1x1T /sdb
/sdb1 – “/” btrfs Full Size

1x2T /sdc
/sdc1 – /DATASTORE1 btrfs FullSize

untill this point all is ok except that I do not see /sdc drive mounted in dolphin file manager.
it comes in as a folder under /root

no for the 2x3T I want to use single btrfs volume in RAID-1 setup so my expectation is once I create the volume
<mkfs.btrfs -m=raid1 -d=raid1 /dev/sde /dev/sdd>
I should see single volume of 3T

BUT if I use Yast/Partitioner the steps needed to create multidevice partition is convoluted to say the least.
and I endup with a single volume in single or maybe raid0 format total size of 5.5Tb.
that some times looks like that or looks like 2.73Tb volume on single drive and the second one is ignored.

when I do it form CLI it seams to look OK in there, but Yast does not recognise the changes at all.
in Yast the drives look like empty unpartitined space and no btrfs volume exist anywere.
I can see changes done in Yast via CLI commands though.
even after several reboots. however I cna see new volume “/DATA1” as folder in root.

are my expectations too “Windows” like to expect to see a device as a device and not as folder?
am I wrong in expecting to see any changes done in CLI to be reflected in Yast? I mean it all should do the same thing in the end thus should see all actions results no matter how it was done, right ?
if you think this needs to be reported let me know…

#18

Some BTRFS stuff is still not working fully and multi volume maybe one. I know the RAID configuration does not work yet. If you need mult- linked volumes LVM is still the way/ Not sure if BTRFS works in LVM might not???

#19

the

the thing is it is working, and actually quiet well.
I am able to create BTRFS volume on multiple devices and all.
but it seams like what I am doing is no registering between GUI system and CLI system.
and some things that should be available in GUI simply don’t exist.
i.e. as described before, when I use Yast to work with btrfs system (and when I do thing in CLI it tells me that I should use Yast), the Yast interface do not offer any options for configuration of the where and how the FS will be created except for single drive at a time, the size of the volume on that one drive and mount point + sub-volume creation.
if I want multi-device setup I have to go at it several more steps and even than the only option I have is to take one drive volume and resize it to include the space on the other drive, but using only single or RAID-0 config as an option yast does not allow me to choose how I want that FS to work. it does not know about any functionality of the btrfs at all…

also when I do something in Yast with this volumes as in if I do resize with adding a hard drive it sets a GUID to the setup
if I do the same thing in CLI it will work and create a new config with its’ own GUID.
so the filesystem show double info one from CLI process and one form Yast.