Friday, June 25, 2004
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Linux Bare-Metal Backup and Recovery Planning
The whole concept behind bare-metal restore is that it's the shortest point from pulling a replacement set of server hardware out of a box to having a working system to replace the one that's down. Ideally, without having to go through re-installing the operating system (which, in the case of Gentoo, can take a few hours). It also (generally) only works when you have exactly the same hardware in the replacement box as the box that's kaput. So if you're using any exotic hardware (e.g. a fancy RAID card), you'd best buy (3). That way when the first one dies, you can put in one of the (2) spare cards and still get at your data.
Some backup software makes the process as simple as dropping a boot CD in the drive and inserting the most recent bare-metal backup (sometimes called a "gold" tape?) tape. It can also be a multi-step process, where the first step restores the operating system to a known state and the second step handles restoring the data and applications.
Since I'm not ready to tackle writing a guide, I'll settle for a few links:
Linux Complete Backup and Recovery HOWTO (by Charles Curley) - A very good starting point.
Linux Journal: Bare Metal Recovery, Revisited (by Charles Curley, Aug 2002) - A good sidebar discussion of the HOWTO document that he wrote.
About.com: Linux backup - A collection of links to backup software.
Unix SysAdm Resources: Backup & Archival Software for Unix (Stokely Consulting) - Listing of backup software for unix.
Linux Backups Mini-FAQ (Karsten M. Self) - Good article on simply using "tar".
Some backup software makes the process as simple as dropping a boot CD in the drive and inserting the most recent bare-metal backup (sometimes called a "gold" tape?) tape. It can also be a multi-step process, where the first step restores the operating system to a known state and the second step handles restoring the data and applications.
Since I'm not ready to tackle writing a guide, I'll settle for a few links:
Linux Complete Backup and Recovery HOWTO (by Charles Curley) - A very good starting point.
Linux Journal: Bare Metal Recovery, Revisited (by Charles Curley, Aug 2002) - A good sidebar discussion of the HOWTO document that he wrote.
About.com: Linux backup - A collection of links to backup software.
Unix SysAdm Resources: Backup & Archival Software for Unix (Stokely Consulting) - Listing of backup software for unix.
Linux Backups Mini-FAQ (Karsten M. Self) - Good article on simply using "tar".
Labels: DisasterRecovery, Linux
Saturday, June 19, 2004
Gentoo: Segmentation fault in vgscan during boot
Now for the other error that I got during the initial bootup.
My initial guess is that the software RAID is not loading up prior to the LVM stuff trying to load. Possibly, I'll have to edit the ordering in "/etc/init.d/checkfs", however since RAID is compiled into the kernel as built-in, and the LVM stuff is a module, the RAID should've already started prior to the LVM stuff.
Looking closer at the boot screen, I can see the "md:" lines correctly autodetecting the RAID arrays. So RAID support seems to be working fine. In fact, if I login to maintenance mode, and "cat /proc/mdstat", all of the RAID arrays show up correctly.
Attempt #1:
Moved things around in /etc/init.d/checkfs. No change in the end-result, except that the messages are re-ordered ("Starting up RAID devices" now appears before "Setting up the Logical Volume Manager") and the error message changes to "4422 Segmentation Fault /sbin/vgscan >/dev/nul". Probably a dry-hole in terms of finding and fixing the real problem.
Attempt #2:
Flipped back to the Gentoo LVM2 documents to see if I missed anything in setting up the LVM set to auto-mount at startup. Booted my way into maintenance mode and use "vgscan -v" to let vgscan attempt to find all of the volume groups. "vgscan" will take a while to run, at least with verbose (-v) mode you'll be able to see some status. On my setup, "vgscan" correctly located the "vgmirror" volume group.
Did a look at the "/etc/lvm" folder on the root volume using "ls -la /etc/lvm" and saw something surprising. There is a ".cache" file which is huge (mine was 10881785 in size). Doing a "cat" of the contents, I see some entries like "/dev/discs/disc2/discs/disc2.../disc2/md/254" which looks like a recursive loop of some sort.
Hint #2, run "vgdisplay -vv" and I see the error message "Too many levels of symbolic links" after each of those long entries. I also see this problem if I run "vgscan -vv". I finally changed my "/etc/lvm/lvm.conf" file to look like the following, and vgscan and vgdisplay are very quick at finding the volume group on my raid array and no longer segfault while looking at other items:
Note that this filter only allows vgscan to scan the "md3" device. This keeps vgscan from scanning other devices that don't need to be scanned on my system (and fixes the segfault issue where it goes into infinite recursion on certain devices). If you need to scan other RAID devices (/dev/md1, etc.) or other physical partitions, then you'll need to adjust the "accept" portion of the filter.
Save, shutdown the raid (raidstop -a /dev/md0 for each /dev/md* device), and reboot. My server now boots up correctly.
Links:
Re: mkfs.xfs on software raid5 (2.6.5 kernel) - MD array /dev/md2 not in clean state (alt.os.linux.gentoo) - Shows the exact error message that I'm seeing.
Re: [gentoo-user] LVM2 Date: 2004-03-31 15:40:13 PST (linux.gentoo.user) - Talks about the ordering in which software RAID and the LVM modules load.
Example of lvm.conf file - shows a more complex lvm.conf file, complete with multiple filters.
A more complete example lvm.conf file
* Using /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 as config:
* Loading module dm-mod... [ ok ]
* Autoloaded 1 module(s)
* Setting up the Logical Volume Manager...
/sbin/rc: line 429: 4422 Segmentation Fault /sbin/vgscan >/dev/nul [ ok ]
* Starting up RAID devices: ...
* Checking all filesystems...
/dev/md0: clean, 39/18072 files, 5573/72192 blocks
fsck.ext: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/vgmirror/opt
/dev/vgmirror/opt:
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193
("No such file or directory..." error repeats for all of the other
logical volumes in the volume group(s) on the system)
My initial guess is that the software RAID is not loading up prior to the LVM stuff trying to load. Possibly, I'll have to edit the ordering in "/etc/init.d/checkfs", however since RAID is compiled into the kernel as built-in, and the LVM stuff is a module, the RAID should've already started prior to the LVM stuff.
Looking closer at the boot screen, I can see the "md:" lines correctly autodetecting the RAID arrays. So RAID support seems to be working fine. In fact, if I login to maintenance mode, and "cat /proc/mdstat", all of the RAID arrays show up correctly.
Attempt #1:
Moved things around in /etc/init.d/checkfs. No change in the end-result, except that the messages are re-ordered ("Starting up RAID devices" now appears before "Setting up the Logical Volume Manager") and the error message changes to "4422 Segmentation Fault /sbin/vgscan >/dev/nul". Probably a dry-hole in terms of finding and fixing the real problem.
Attempt #2:
Flipped back to the Gentoo LVM2 documents to see if I missed anything in setting up the LVM set to auto-mount at startup. Booted my way into maintenance mode and use "vgscan -v" to let vgscan attempt to find all of the volume groups. "vgscan" will take a while to run, at least with verbose (-v) mode you'll be able to see some status. On my setup, "vgscan" correctly located the "vgmirror" volume group.
Did a look at the "/etc/lvm" folder on the root volume using "ls -la /etc/lvm" and saw something surprising. There is a ".cache" file which is huge (mine was 10881785 in size). Doing a "cat" of the contents, I see some entries like "/dev/discs/disc2/discs/disc2.../disc2/md/254" which looks like a recursive loop of some sort.
Hint #2, run "vgdisplay -vv" and I see the error message "Too many levels of symbolic links" after each of those long entries. I also see this problem if I run "vgscan -vv". I finally changed my "/etc/lvm/lvm.conf" file to look like the following, and vgscan and vgdisplay are very quick at finding the volume group on my raid array and no longer segfault while looking at other items:
devices = {
scan=["/dev/md"]
filter=["a|^/dev/md/3$|","r/.*/"]
}Note that this filter only allows vgscan to scan the "md3" device. This keeps vgscan from scanning other devices that don't need to be scanned on my system (and fixes the segfault issue where it goes into infinite recursion on certain devices). If you need to scan other RAID devices (/dev/md1, etc.) or other physical partitions, then you'll need to adjust the "accept" portion of the filter.
Save, shutdown the raid (raidstop -a /dev/md0 for each /dev/md* device), and reboot. My server now boots up correctly.
Links:
Re: mkfs.xfs on software raid5 (2.6.5 kernel) - MD array /dev/md2 not in clean state (alt.os.linux.gentoo) - Shows the exact error message that I'm seeing.
Re: [gentoo-user] LVM2 Date: 2004-03-31 15:40:13 PST (linux.gentoo.user) - Talks about the ordering in which software RAID and the LVM modules load.
Example of lvm.conf file - shows a more complex lvm.conf file, complete with multiple filters.
A more complete example lvm.conf file
Labels: LVM
Gentoo: Failed to load mii
More self-inflicted pain (guarantee that I'm doing this to myself, not due to the Gentoo install guide...)
During boot-up after installing the 2.6.6 kernel, the following (2) modules fail to load:
The second error is because I had configured the kernel to load "via-rhine" as built-in and not as a module. You can do one or the other, but not both.
Not sure about the "mii" error, I'll merely comment it out in the autoload config file for now and see what happens.
During boot-up after installing the 2.6.6 kernel, the following (2) modules fail to load:
Loading module mii...
Failed to load mii
Loading module via-rhine...
Failed to load via-rhine
The second error is because I had configured the kernel to load "via-rhine" as built-in and not as a module. You can do one or the other, but not both.
Not sure about the "mii" error, I'll merely comment it out in the autoload config file for now and see what happens.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Securing cwRSync
At the office we're working on setting up cwRSync on the web server array to push the daily web/ftp/smtp log files back to a central point for archiving. Right now, since all of the web servers are on the same LAN segment at the hosting facility, we're just sending the plain text data across the wire to the rsync port (tcp/873). Since the previous solution was to use FTP to move the log files around, it's no worse then the old solution from a security standpoint. (It is, however, much faster and more efficient.) Security is handled solely thorugh the rsyncd.conf "hosts allow" setting (only the internal IP addresses are allowed to be used to transfer the data) with no passwords or shared keys.
However, since the next step is that we want to setup pulling those log files automatically back to the main office, we need to look into locking it down further and putting encryption in place (e.g. routing rsync traffic over an ssh tunnel).
After digging around a bit here's what I've found:
The cwRSync Service does not support SSH, so there's no way to connect securely to a rsync server that is using cwRSync as its daemon. Future releases are expected to add ssh support for cwRSync servers. Locking down through IP address and username/password is the limit of what you can do for security, all traffic is in the clear (unless you have IPSec between the two machines).
However, you can use cwRSync in a client-configuration and route the traffic over SSH to a SSH-capable rsync server.
That being said, I'm going to explore some other packages. All of which will either require that cygwin be installed, or at least that certain cygwin DLLs be installed.
Links:
Rsync wrapper for Win32 - Uses the cygwin DLLs, but doesn't require a full cygwin install, includes SSH.
However, since the next step is that we want to setup pulling those log files automatically back to the main office, we need to look into locking it down further and putting encryption in place (e.g. routing rsync traffic over an ssh tunnel).
After digging around a bit here's what I've found:
The cwRSync Service does not support SSH, so there's no way to connect securely to a rsync server that is using cwRSync as its daemon. Future releases are expected to add ssh support for cwRSync servers. Locking down through IP address and username/password is the limit of what you can do for security, all traffic is in the clear (unless you have IPSec between the two machines).
However, you can use cwRSync in a client-configuration and route the traffic over SSH to a SSH-capable rsync server.
That being said, I'm going to explore some other packages. All of which will either require that cygwin be installed, or at least that certain cygwin DLLs be installed.
Links:
Rsync wrapper for Win32 - Uses the cygwin DLLs, but doesn't require a full cygwin install, includes SSH.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Troubleshooting software RAID boot problems
First problem is that the system boots straight into "grub". Probably due to a missing "grub.conf" file, which I'm pretty sure I had written to the proper location earlier in the install. So I'll load the kernel by hand and fix the config file once I get the box to boot properly.
This starts the kernel boot process, which will then lead me to my second error. In the meantime, if you use [shift-PgUp] and [shift-PgDn] you can scroll back and forth through the boot messages. A minor problem is that since the raid didn't shutdown cleanly, there are numerous "md: mdx: raid array is not clean -- starting background reconstruction" messages. And I can't even begin to troubleshoot the "Kernel panic: No init found" error until resync is done (that's a 2.5-3.0 hour process).
Looking back at my kernel configuration, I see that Software RAID with RAID1 support was compiled as BUILTIN, and ext2/ext3 were installed by default if I remember correctly. Those are two of the possible errors that could cause the kernel not to be able to read from the "/" (root) partition.
Also possible is that the "/" filesystem was not properly mounted during the install. The following is what I've tried to do in order to fix the issue (or at least diagnose the issue). I would strongly recommend that you do not use the following on a production system unless you understand what everything does. Since I don't have any data on the system (other then config files), I have a good amount of latitude with regards to what I can do. Hopefully, since /boot, /usr, /opt, /var and /home are intact, things will go quicker then the first install.
This repair process is basically a complete reinstall because nothing else under "/" (root) actually got written to the hard drive. Only the separately mounted folders such as /boot, /opt, /usr, /var, and /home were properly mounted.
Note: The following steps assume that you have nothing on your partitions worth keeping, or that you've already backed everything up. I tried doing it without formatting the "/" partition, but the bootstrap.sh file keeps dying on line 84. So I'm going to do a format of the "/" partition as well as /opt, /usr, /var, /tmp, and /var/tmp.
Boot the LiveCD, at the boot prompt be sure to pick the boot kernel and pass the arguments that you want, then load the raid and LVM modules.
If you have a copy of your /etc/raidtab file on floppy, copy it in now, otherwise you'll have to re-key your /etc/raidtab by hand. If you need, you can temporarly mount partitions to copy files from.
If bootstrap runs correctly (and it should now that I re-formatted the /opt, /usr, /var, /home, /tmp, and /var/tmp volumes), I can pick back up with the rest of my original install process
grub>
grub> cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
(no file found)
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> kernel /kernel-2.6.6-gentoo root=/dev/md2
grub> boot
This starts the kernel boot process, which will then lead me to my second error. In the meantime, if you use [shift-PgUp] and [shift-PgDn] you can scroll back and forth through the boot messages. A minor problem is that since the raid didn't shutdown cleanly, there are numerous "md: mdx: raid array is not clean -- starting background reconstruction" messages. And I can't even begin to troubleshoot the "Kernel panic: No init found" error until resync is done (that's a 2.5-3.0 hour process).
Looking back at my kernel configuration, I see that Software RAID with RAID1 support was compiled as BUILTIN, and ext2/ext3 were installed by default if I remember correctly. Those are two of the possible errors that could cause the kernel not to be able to read from the "/" (root) partition.
Also possible is that the "/" filesystem was not properly mounted during the install. The following is what I've tried to do in order to fix the issue (or at least diagnose the issue). I would strongly recommend that you do not use the following on a production system unless you understand what everything does. Since I don't have any data on the system (other then config files), I have a good amount of latitude with regards to what I can do. Hopefully, since /boot, /usr, /opt, /var and /home are intact, things will go quicker then the first install.
This repair process is basically a complete reinstall because nothing else under "/" (root) actually got written to the hard drive. Only the separately mounted folders such as /boot, /opt, /usr, /var, and /home were properly mounted.
Note: The following steps assume that you have nothing on your partitions worth keeping, or that you've already backed everything up. I tried doing it without formatting the "/" partition, but the bootstrap.sh file keeps dying on line 84. So I'm going to do a format of the "/" partition as well as /opt, /usr, /var, /tmp, and /var/tmp.
Boot the LiveCD, at the boot prompt be sure to pick the boot kernel and pass the arguments that you want, then load the raid and LVM modules.
boot: gentoo -nohotplug
(gentoo kernel now loads)
livecd root # modprobe md
livecd root # modprobe dm-mod
livecd root # modprobe via-rhine (if your network adapter failed to autoload)
livecd root # net-setup eth0 (if your network adapter failed to autoload)
If you have a copy of your /etc/raidtab file on floppy, copy it in now, otherwise you'll have to re-key your /etc/raidtab by hand. If you need, you can temporarly mount partitions to copy files from.
livecd root # nano -w /etc/raidtab
livecd root # raidstart -a
livecd root # cat /proc/mdstat
(verify that all raid sets are up and running)
livecd root # swapon /dev/md1
livecd root # mke2fs -j /dev/md2 (OVERWRITES YOUR / PARTITION)
livecd root # mount /dev/md2 /mnt/gentoo
livecd root # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
livecd root # mount /dev/md0 /mnt/gentoo/boot
livecd root # ls /mnt/gentoo/boot
(if you have files already in /boot, this verifies that you mounted in the proper order)
livecd root # mkdir /etc/lvm
livecd root # echo 'devices { filter=["r/cdrom/"] }' > /etc/lvm/lvm.conf
livecd root # vgscan
(verify that it found your existing volume group or groups)
livecd root # vgchange -ay vgmirror
livecd root # lvscan
(verify that your logical volumes now show up and are "ACTIVE")
livecd root # mke2fs -j /dev/vgmirror/opt (OVERWRITES YOUR / PARTITION)
livecd root # mke2fs -j /dev/vgmirror/usr (OVERWRITES YOUR / PARTITION)
livecd root # mke2fs -j /dev/vgmirror/var (OVERWRITES YOUR / PARTITION)
livecd root # mke2fs -j /dev/vgmirror/home (OVERWRITES YOUR / PARTITION)
livecd root # mke2fs /dev/vgmirror/ttmp (OVERWRITES YOUR / PARTITION)
livecd root # mke2fs /dev/vgmirror/vartmp (OVERWRITES YOUR / PARTITION)
livecd root # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/opt
livecd root # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/usr
livecd root # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/var
livecd root # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/home
livecd root # mount /dev/vgmirror/opt /mnt/gentoo/opt
livecd root # mount /dev/vgmirror/usr /mnt/gentoo/usr
livecd root # mount /dev/vgmirror/var /mnt/gentoo/var
livecd root # mount /dev/vgmirror/home /mnt/gentoo/home
livecd root # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/tmp
livecd root # mount /dev/vgmirror/tmp /mnt/gentoo/tmp
livecd root # chmod 1777 /mnt/gentoo/tmp
livecd root # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp
livecd root # mount /dev/vgmirror/vartmp /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp
livecd root # chmod 1777 /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp
livecd root # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/proc
livecd root # mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
livecd root # date
livecd root # cd /mnt/gentoo
livecd gentoo # tar -xvjpf /mnt/cdrom/stages/stage1-x86-20040218.tar.bz2
livecd gentoo # tar -xvjf /mnt/cdrom/snapshots/portage-20040223.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo/usr
livecd gentoo # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles
livecd gentoo # cp /mnt/cdrom/distfiles/* /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles/
livecd gentoo # nano -w /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf
(repeat your make.conf from the initial install)
livecd gentoo # mirrorselect -a -s4 -o | grep -ve '^Netselect' >> /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf
livecd gentoo # cp -L /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf /mnt/gentoo/boot/make.conf-backupcopy
livecd gentoo # cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf
livecd gentoo # cp -L /etc/raidtab /mnt/gentoo/etc/raidtab
livecd gentoo # cp -L /etc/raidtab /mnt/gentoo/boot/raidtab-backupcopy
livecd gentoo # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/etc/lvm
livecd gentoo # cp -L /etc/lvm/lvm.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/lvm/lvm.conf
livecd gentoo # cp -L /etc/lvm/lvm.conf /mnt/gentoo/boot/lvm.conf-backupcopy
livecd gentoo # chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
livecd / # env-update
livecd / # source /etc/profile
livecd / # emerge sync
livecd / # cd /usr/portage
livecd / # scripts/bootstrap.sh
If bootstrap runs correctly (and it should now that I re-formatted the /opt, /usr, /var, /home, /tmp, and /var/tmp volumes), I can pick back up with the rest of my original install process
Labels: SoftwareRAID
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Gentoo Install 6 (Grub, System Tools, Finalizing the Install)
(previous post about configuring the kernel and setting up the filesystem)
Picking up with 9.b. Default: Using GRUB in the handbook. (Also see my older post about configuring grub.) Also take a look at the end of the thread on the gentoo forums (look for user "havoc") where it discusses how to setup grub on both the primary and secondary drives (see the original article). Now is also a good time to pull up the official Software RAID HOWTO and review that as well (especially section 7.3).
The above is a little tricky to follow. The first "root" and "setup" commands specify that grub should boot from the first partition on hd0 (which is /dev/hda in my config) and "setup" installs the MBR record to the drive.
Then we pull a switch on grub with the "device" command, telling it to pretend that /dev/hdc (the secondary drive in the RAID array) is now hd0. The second set of "root/setup" commands then write the MBR out to the 2nd drive in the array. If I undstand everything correctly, this means that in the case of the primary drive dying, the RAID array will still be able to boot off of the secondary drive. (I don't believe that you would need to move it to the primary cable.)
Now edit/create your config file for grub, "nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf"". You'll need to know the name of your kernel file that you compiled and copied to /boot earlier. Here's what mine looks like (booting from the first partition on the first drive):
Refer to the handbook, Installing Necessary System Tools, for the next few commands (I mostly used the defaults, but this is a cut-n-paste from my previous install).
Then refer to Finalizing your Gentoo Installation.
Note: Now you need to unmount everything that you can (including LVM), possibly shutdown the RAID as well prior to reboot.
If all goes well, the system should shutdown and then restart from the software RAID.
My system locked up during shutdown on or after "Stopping USB and PCI hotplugging". Which probably means there was a boot option that I should've entered way back when I booted off the LiveCD (actually it means I didn't properly specify the "nohotplug" option at the "boot:" prompt on the LiveCD).
Picking up with 9.b. Default: Using GRUB in the handbook. (Also see my older post about configuring grub.) Also take a look at the end of the thread on the gentoo forums (look for user "havoc") where it discusses how to setup grub on both the primary and secondary drives (see the original article). Now is also a good time to pull up the official Software RAID HOWTO and review that as well (especially section 7.3).
# grub --no-floppy
grub> find /grub/stage1
(hd0,0)
(hd1,0)
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> device (hd0) /dev/hdc
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit
The above is a little tricky to follow. The first "root" and "setup" commands specify that grub should boot from the first partition on hd0 (which is /dev/hda in my config) and "setup" installs the MBR record to the drive.
Then we pull a switch on grub with the "device" command, telling it to pretend that /dev/hdc (the secondary drive in the RAID array) is now hd0. The second set of "root/setup" commands then write the MBR out to the 2nd drive in the array. If I undstand everything correctly, this means that in the case of the primary drive dying, the RAID array will still be able to boot off of the secondary drive. (I don't believe that you would need to move it to the primary cable.)
Now edit/create your config file for grub, "nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf"". You'll need to know the name of your kernel file that you compiled and copied to /boot earlier. Here's what mine looks like (booting from the first partition on the first drive):
default 0
timeout 30
title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.6 (June 16 2004)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-2.6.6-gentoo root=/dev/md2
Refer to the handbook, Installing Necessary System Tools, for the next few commands (I mostly used the defaults, but this is a cut-n-paste from my previous install).
# emerge syslog-ng
# rc-update add syslog-ng default
# emerge dcron
# rc-update add dcron default
# crontab /etc/crontab
Then refer to Finalizing your Gentoo Installation.
# passwd
# useradd john -m -G users,wheel,audio -s /bin/bash
# passwd john
Note: Now you need to unmount everything that you can (including LVM), possibly shutdown the RAID as well prior to reboot.
livecd gentoo # exit
livecd / # cd /
livecd / # cat /proc/mounts
(unmount all of your mounted partitions, including the LVM mounts)
livecd / # umount ... (insert list of mounted file systems)
livecd / # vgchange -an vgmirror
livecd / # raidstop -a /dev/md0
livecd / # raidstop -a /dev/md3
livecd / # reboot
If all goes well, the system should shutdown and then restart from the software RAID.
My system locked up during shutdown on or after "Stopping USB and PCI hotplugging". Which probably means there was a boot option that I should've entered way back when I booted off the LiveCD (actually it means I didn't properly specify the "nohotplug" option at the "boot:" prompt on the LiveCD).
Gentoo Install: "emerge grub" or "emerge lilo" fails to mount /boot
Sometimes "emerge grub" or "emerge lilo" fails with the following error and you are attempting to mount "/boot" on a software RAID1 partition:
(The error messages will be pretty much identical for both "lilo" and "grub".)
The problem was, for me at least, that prior to doing the chroot into the new environment, I had failed to mkdir and mount the /boot partition. (See the start of step 2 in my install notes.)
Here's the quick-n-easy way that I fixed the problem. I had to temporarily exit out of the chroot'd environment, back to the livecd bootup environment, mount the partition, and then chroot back.
Update: While this set of instructions did properly fixup the /boot partition with "grub", it really didn't treat the root cause of the entire mess. (See Troubleshooting Software RAID.)
The root-cause was that back when I did the first part of the install, not only did I fail to mount the /mnt/gentoo and /mnt/gentoo/boot folders properly, but I then mounted them out-of-order when I did catch the error. That causes all sorts of problems down the road, yet the install process will look like it's going off without a hitch (until you reboot).
Links:
www.gentoo.pl - This page might've had the answer, but unfortunately it was written in polish.
*
* Cannot automatically mount your /boot partition.
* Your boot partition has to be mounted rw before the installation
* can continue. lilo needs to install important files there.
*
!!! ERROR: sys-boot/lilo-22.5.8-r1 failed.
!!! Function mount-boot_mount_boot_partition, Line 53, Exitcode 0
!!! Please mount your /boot partition manually!
!!! FAILED preinst: 1
(The error messages will be pretty much identical for both "lilo" and "grub".)
The problem was, for me at least, that prior to doing the chroot into the new environment, I had failed to mkdir and mount the /boot partition. (See the start of step 2 in my install notes.)
Here's the quick-n-easy way that I fixed the problem. I had to temporarily exit out of the chroot'd environment, back to the livecd bootup environment, mount the partition, and then chroot back.
livecd / # exit
livecd / # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
livecd / # mount /dev/md0 /mnt/gentoo/boot
livecd / # cat /proc/mounts
livecd gentoo # chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
livecd / # env-update
livecd / # source /etc/profile
(now copy your kernel into /boot again from /usr/src/linux-2.6.6)
livecd / # emerge lilo
(or if you're using grub...)
livecd / # emerge grub
Update: While this set of instructions did properly fixup the /boot partition with "grub", it really didn't treat the root cause of the entire mess. (See Troubleshooting Software RAID.)
The root-cause was that back when I did the first part of the install, not only did I fail to mount the /mnt/gentoo and /mnt/gentoo/boot folders properly, but I then mounted them out-of-order when I did catch the error. That causes all sorts of problems down the road, yet the install process will look like it's going off without a hitch (until you reboot).
Links:
www.gentoo.pl - This page might've had the answer, but unfortunately it was written in polish.
Gentoo Install 5 (Manual Kernel Configuration)
(previous post - building the kernel)
Note: This is for a VIA EPIA ME6000 motherboard being used as a headless server. All of the multimedia and graphic options are disabled. (See my previous install.) If this is your first install, you should probably use the "genkernel" method rather then manual configuration. The Gentoo docs explain configuring the kernel. They recommend being familiar with the "cat /proc/pci" and "lsmod" commands which is something I missed on my previous install.
Anywhere in the following list where I say "turn ON" means to use the "Y" key to turn an option on as built-in, I'll specifically say MODULE if I loaded the option as a module.
Linux Kernel v2.6.6 Configuration
(C)ode maturity level options
(G)eneral setup
--> (C)onfigure standard kernel features for small systems (turn ON)
--> --> (O)ptimize for size (turn ON)
(L)oadable module support
(P)rocessor type and features
--> (P)rocessor family (changed to "CyrixIII/VIA-C3")
--> (S)ymetric multi-processing support (turned this one OFF)
--> M(a)chine Check Exception (turned this OFF)
(P)ower management options (ACPI, APM)
(B)us options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA< MCA, ISA)
(E)xecutable file formats
(D)evice drivers
--> (P)arallel port support (turned OFF)
--> (A)TA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support (turned ON the VIA82CXXX chipset support as BUILT-IN)
--> M(u)lti-device support (turn it ON)
--> --> (R)AID support (turn it ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> --> (R)AID-1 mirroring mode (turn it ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> (D)evice mapper support (set to MODULE, per section 13 of LVM2 guide)
--> N(e)tworking support
--> --> N(e)twork device support, (E)thernet 10/100Mbit
--> --> --> (R)ealTek RTL-8139 PCI (turn OFF)
--> --> --> (V)IA Rhine (turn ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> --> --> (U)se MMIO instead of PIO (turn ON)
--> (C)haracter Devices
--> --> (I)ntel/AMD/VIA HW Random Number Generator (turn ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> /(d)ev/agpgart AGP Support
--> --> --> (I)ntel 440LX/BX/GX I8xx E7x05 (turn OFF)
--> --> --> (V)IA chipset support (turn ON as BUILT-IN)
--> (I)2C support (turn ON, heavily reliant on building an MP3 server for these options)
--> --> (I)2C device interface (turned ON as BUILT-IN, epiawiki says "on", MP3 server article says "off")
--> --> (I)2C Algorithms
--> --> --> (I)2C bit-banging interface (turn ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> (I)2C Hardware Bus support
--> --> --> (V)IA 82C586B support (turn on as BUILT-IN)
--> --> (I)2C Hardware Sensors Chip
--> --> --> (V)IA686A (turn on as BUILT-IN)
--> (S)ound
--> --> (S)ound card support (turn OFF)
(F)ile systems
--> (P)seudo filesystems
--> --> /(d)ev file system support OBSOLETE (turn ON)
--> --> --> (A)utomatically mount at boot (turn ON)
(P)rofiling support
(K)ernel hacking
(S)ecurity options
(C)ryptographic options
--> (C)ryptographic API (turn ON)
--> --> (H)MAC support (turn ON)
--> --> (turn ON the others as MODULE)
(L)ibrary routines
Exit and save your configuration. Then build the kernel (the following is for 2.6 kernels). Expect the compile to take about an hour.
Now you need to install your kernel into the boot partition. Change the "2.6.6-gentoo" portion of the filenames to whatever you want.
Next is 7.e. Installing Separate Kernel Modules, which is where we specify which modules from above that we configured as "MODULE" instead of "BUILT-IN" get loaded at bootup. Use the command "nano -w /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6" to edit your config file. Here is what mine looked like (yours will probably be different).
I also need to emerge in LVM2 support as well as the "raidtools" package (per Gentoo x86 Installation Tips & Tricks).
Time to edit the "/etc/fstab" table (see 8.a. Filesystem Information and also refer back to my mount commands from earlier). Here's my "/etc/fstab" file:
Change your hostname, domainname, and the default run level.
Onward to chapter 9, configuring the bootloader. Here's where I ran into trouble; "emerge grub" or "emerge lilo" failed with "cannot automatically mount your /boot partition".
(continued in my next post)
Note: This is for a VIA EPIA ME6000 motherboard being used as a headless server. All of the multimedia and graphic options are disabled. (See my previous install.) If this is your first install, you should probably use the "genkernel" method rather then manual configuration. The Gentoo docs explain configuring the kernel. They recommend being familiar with the "cat /proc/pci" and "lsmod" commands which is something I missed on my previous install.
# cd /usr/src/linux
# make menuconfig
Anywhere in the following list where I say "turn ON" means to use the "Y" key to turn an option on as built-in, I'll specifically say MODULE if I loaded the option as a module.
Linux Kernel v2.6.6 Configuration
(C)ode maturity level options
(G)eneral setup
--> (C)onfigure standard kernel features for small systems (turn ON)
--> --> (O)ptimize for size (turn ON)
(L)oadable module support
(P)rocessor type and features
--> (P)rocessor family (changed to "CyrixIII/VIA-C3")
--> (S)ymetric multi-processing support (turned this one OFF)
--> M(a)chine Check Exception (turned this OFF)
(P)ower management options (ACPI, APM)
(B)us options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA< MCA, ISA)
(E)xecutable file formats
(D)evice drivers
--> (P)arallel port support (turned OFF)
--> (A)TA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support (turned ON the VIA82CXXX chipset support as BUILT-IN)
--> M(u)lti-device support (turn it ON)
--> --> (R)AID support (turn it ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> --> (R)AID-1 mirroring mode (turn it ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> (D)evice mapper support (set to MODULE, per section 13 of LVM2 guide)
--> N(e)tworking support
--> --> N(e)twork device support, (E)thernet 10/100Mbit
--> --> --> (R)ealTek RTL-8139 PCI (turn OFF)
--> --> --> (V)IA Rhine (turn ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> --> --> (U)se MMIO instead of PIO (turn ON)
--> (C)haracter Devices
--> --> (I)ntel/AMD/VIA HW Random Number Generator (turn ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> /(d)ev/agpgart AGP Support
--> --> --> (I)ntel 440LX/BX/GX I8xx E7x05 (turn OFF)
--> --> --> (V)IA chipset support (turn ON as BUILT-IN)
--> (I)2C support (turn ON, heavily reliant on building an MP3 server for these options)
--> --> (I)2C device interface (turned ON as BUILT-IN, epiawiki says "on", MP3 server article says "off")
--> --> (I)2C Algorithms
--> --> --> (I)2C bit-banging interface (turn ON as BUILT-IN)
--> --> (I)2C Hardware Bus support
--> --> --> (V)IA 82C586B support (turn on as BUILT-IN)
--> --> (I)2C Hardware Sensors Chip
--> --> --> (V)IA686A (turn on as BUILT-IN)
--> (S)ound
--> --> (S)ound card support (turn OFF)
(F)ile systems
--> (P)seudo filesystems
--> --> /(d)ev file system support OBSOLETE (turn ON)
--> --> --> (A)utomatically mount at boot (turn ON)
(P)rofiling support
(K)ernel hacking
(S)ecurity options
(C)ryptographic options
--> (C)ryptographic API (turn ON)
--> --> (H)MAC support (turn ON)
--> --> (turn ON the others as MODULE)
(L)ibrary routines
Exit and save your configuration. Then build the kernel (the following is for 2.6 kernels). Expect the compile to take about an hour.
make && make modules_install
Now you need to install your kernel into the boot partition. Change the "2.6.6-gentoo" portion of the filenames to whatever you want.
# cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.6-gentoo
# cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.6-gentoo
# cp .config /boot/config-2.6.6-gentoo
Next is 7.e. Installing Separate Kernel Modules, which is where we specify which modules from above that we configured as "MODULE" instead of "BUILT-IN" get loaded at bootup. Use the command "nano -w /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6" to edit your config file. Here is what mine looked like (yours will probably be different).
# autoloads the following modules at boot time
#LVM2 (logical volume manager)
dm-mod
#ethernet
#mii (not needed?)
#via-rhine (compiled as built-in)
I also need to emerge in LVM2 support as well as the "raidtools" package (per Gentoo x86 Installation Tips & Tricks).
# modules-update
# emerge lvm2
# emerge raidtools
Time to edit the "/etc/fstab" table (see 8.a. Filesystem Information and also refer back to my mount commands from earlier). Here's my "/etc/fstab" file:
/dev/md0 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 2
/dev/md2 / ext3 natime 0 1
/dev/md1 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,user 0 0
/dev/vgmirror/opt /opt ext3 noatime 0 3
/dev/vgmirror/usr /usr ext3 noatime 0 3
/dev/vgmirror/var /var ext3 noatime 0 3
/dev/vgmirror/home /home ext3 noatime 0 0
/dev/vgmirror/tmp /tmp ext2 noatime 0 3
/dev/vgmirror/vartmp /var/tmp ext2 noatime 0 3
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
Change your hostname, domainname, and the default run level.
# echo yourhostname > /etc/hostname
# echo yourdnsname > /etc/dnsdomainname
# rc-update add domainname default
# nano -w /etc/conf.d/net
(either use iface_eth0="dhcp" or configure your IP and gateway)
# rc-update add net.eth0 default
# cat /etc/resolv.conf
(verify your DNS servers if you specified a static IP)
# nano -w /etc/rc.conf
(change CLOCK="UTC" to CLOCK="local")
Onward to chapter 9, configuring the bootloader. Here's where I ran into trouble; "emerge grub" or "emerge lilo" failed with "cannot automatically mount your /boot partition".
# emerge grub
(continued in my next post)
Gentoo Install 4 (Installing the Kernel Sources)
(previous post)
Picking up with 7. Configuring the Kernel. If your system crashes after this point, I do have a few notes jotted down on how to get back to here without rebuilding everything. (Since this is where I screwed up last time and put the machine into an unusable state.)
Timezone for me is EST5EDT, so here's how to set that up.
Next, pick your kernel. For me, since gentoo-sources, gs-sources (gentoo stable) and vanilla-sources are all still on the 2.4 kernel, I'm going to go with development-sources which is at version 2.6.6 and regardless of the name is actually a rather stable tree.
This will take a while to run. Last time I think it took somewhere around 2 hours, this time it only took 30-40 minutes. So my previous estimate was probably a bit off (or it took longer to download last time).
(next step)
Picking up with 7. Configuring the Kernel. If your system crashes after this point, I do have a few notes jotted down on how to get back to here without rebuilding everything. (Since this is where I screwed up last time and put the machine into an unusable state.)
Timezone for me is EST5EDT, so here's how to set that up.
# ls /usr/share/zoneinfo
# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST5EDT /etc/localtime
# date 06161009
# zdump GMT
# zdump EST5EDT
Next, pick your kernel. For me, since gentoo-sources, gs-sources (gentoo stable) and vanilla-sources are all still on the 2.4 kernel, I'm going to go with development-sources which is at version 2.6.6 and regardless of the name is actually a rather stable tree.
# emerge -s sources | less
# emerge development-sources
This will take a while to run. Last time I think it took somewhere around 2 hours, this time it only took 30-40 minutes. So my previous estimate was probably a bit off (or it took longer to download last time).
(next step)
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Gentoo Install 3 (Bootstrapping)
(previous post)
Time to bootstrap the system (See moving from stage 1 to stage 2). If you have multiple machines on the network, all with the same version of gcc, now is the when you'll want to configure your distcc configuration.
This will take a while to run (update: took 8 hours to run). If the bootstrap script fails, and you're re-using a portage tree (or possibly other files under /opt, /usr, /var, /home, /tmp or /var/tmp), then you may need to clean out the old files. (Generally not an issue if you're doing a fresh install.)
Once that finishes, run the following command.
Which will also take a while to run (last time it took around 5.5 hours). Update: Took around 4.5 hours this time.
(next post)
Time to bootstrap the system (See moving from stage 1 to stage 2). If you have multiple machines on the network, all with the same version of gcc, now is the when you'll want to configure your distcc configuration.
# cd /usr/portage
# scripts/bootstrap.sh
This will take a while to run (update: took 8 hours to run). If the bootstrap script fails, and you're re-using a portage tree (or possibly other files under /opt, /usr, /var, /home, /tmp or /var/tmp), then you may need to clean out the old files. (Generally not an issue if you're doing a fresh install.)
Once that finishes, run the following command.
# emerge system
Which will also take a while to run (last time it took around 5.5 hours). Update: Took around 4.5 hours this time.
(next post)
Gentoo Install 2 (VIA EPIA ME6000)
(Previous post about fdisk and setting up the software RAID.)
At this point, we've partitioned the disk and setup the "/etc/raidtab" file. It's a good idea to jot down everything in that file and put it in a safe place. You should also "cat /proc/mdstat" and jot that information down too.
The following commands will format the boot and root partitions (/dev/md0 is /boot, /dev/md2 is /). I'll also be setting up the swap on /dev/md1. Since we're doing RAID1, there's no need to use the "-R stride=n" option of mke2fs (that's only useful for RAID0, RAID4 or RAID5). Note that you must mount the "/" (root) partition before creating and mounting the boot folder within that tree.
Next, initialize the 4th RAID set in preparation for LVM (pvcreate). Create the "/etc/lvm/lvm.conf" file and create the volume group for the 4th RAID set (vgcreate). Also see the Gentoo LVM documentation. If needed, use "modprobe dm-mod" to load the LVM module.
Now we need to create some logical volumes inside our "vgmirror" volume group. Here's a list of my initial logical volumes:
4GB /tmp (ext2)
4GB /var/tmp (ext2)
2GB /opt (ext3)
4GB /usr (ext3)
4GB /var (ext3)
8GB /home (ext3)
Create the logical volumes using "lvcreate", then verify by looking in the "/dev/vgmirror" folder as well as "lvscan":
Now, format the logical volumes with the desired filesystems.
Make the directories to hold your mounted volumes. Mount your volumes.
Make the special directories to hold your temp file volumes (these require special permissions). Then mount your temp file volumes. Also mount your proc folder.
We are now ready to start installing Gentoo (chapter 5 in the handbook). Also see my previous post about CFLAGS, which might explain why I've chosen some particular settings. First, we need to extract the stage 1 tarball.
Now we need to configure the base compile options. Here's the content of my make.conf file (use at your own risk). Be sure to go look at 5.e. Configuring the Compile Options in the Gentoo Handbook. Also look at Gentoo USE flags and Gentoo Linux USE Variable Descriptions. I've set some very aggressive USE flags in my make.conf file (anything to do with graphics or multimedia since this is a headless file server) and I don't know whether it's proper to remove all of those USE flags yet. Note that even though the USE= line shown here is spread across two lines, it should be all one line in the actual make.conf file (the line break here is for visual clarity only).
Next we're ready to install the base system, see 6. Installing the Gentoo Base System in the Gentoo Handbook.
Synchronization of the portage tree will take a while (depending on the speed of your internet connection and how fast your system is). My system downloaded 60MB or so worth of updates and took 30-60 minutes (at a guess). Meanwhile, I'll continue this topic in my next post.
At this point, we've partitioned the disk and setup the "/etc/raidtab" file. It's a good idea to jot down everything in that file and put it in a safe place. You should also "cat /proc/mdstat" and jot that information down too.
The following commands will format the boot and root partitions (/dev/md0 is /boot, /dev/md2 is /). I'll also be setting up the swap on /dev/md1. Since we're doing RAID1, there's no need to use the "-R stride=n" option of mke2fs (that's only useful for RAID0, RAID4 or RAID5). Note that you must mount the "/" (root) partition before creating and mounting the boot folder within that tree.
# mke2fs /dev/md0
# mke2fs -j /dev/md2
# mkswap /dev/md1
# swapon /dev/md1
# mount /dev/md2 /mnt/gentoo
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
# mount /dev/md0 /mnt/gentoo/boot
Next, initialize the 4th RAID set in preparation for LVM (pvcreate). Create the "/etc/lvm/lvm.conf" file and create the volume group for the 4th RAID set (vgcreate). Also see the Gentoo LVM documentation. If needed, use "modprobe dm-mod" to load the LVM module.
# pvcreate /dev/md3
# echo 'devices { filter=["r/cdrom/"] }' >/etc/lvm/lvm.conf
# vgcreate vgmirror /dev/md3
# vgscan
Now we need to create some logical volumes inside our "vgmirror" volume group. Here's a list of my initial logical volumes:
4GB /tmp (ext2)
4GB /var/tmp (ext2)
2GB /opt (ext3)
4GB /usr (ext3)
4GB /var (ext3)
8GB /home (ext3)
Create the logical volumes using "lvcreate", then verify by looking in the "/dev/vgmirror" folder as well as "lvscan":
# lvcreate -L4G -ntmp vgmirror
# lvcreate -L4G -nvartmp vgmirror
# lvcreate -L2G -nopt vgmirror
# lvcreate -L4G -nusr vgmirror
# lvcreate -L4G -nvar vgmirror
# lvcreate -L8G -nhome vgmirror
# ls /dev/vgmirror
# lvscan
Now, format the logical volumes with the desired filesystems.
# mke2fs /dev/vgmirror/tmp
# mke2fs /dev/vgmirror/vartmp
# mke2fs -j /dev/vgmirror/opt
# mke2fs -j /dev/vgmirror/usr
# mke2fs -j /dev/vgmirror/var
# mke2fs -j /dev/vgmirror/home
Make the directories to hold your mounted volumes. Mount your volumes.
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/opt
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/usr
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/var
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/home
# mount /dev/vgmirror/opt /mnt/gentoo/opt
# mount /dev/vgmirror/usr /mnt/gentoo/usr
# mount /dev/vgmirror/var /mnt/gentoo/var
# mount /dev/vgmirror/home /mnt/gentoo/home
Make the special directories to hold your temp file volumes (these require special permissions). Then mount your temp file volumes. Also mount your proc folder.
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/tmp
# mount /dev/vgmirror/tmp /mnt/gentoo/tmp
# chmod 1777 /mnt/gentoo/tmp
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp
# mount /dev/vgmirror/vartmp /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp
# chmod 1777 /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/proc
# mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
We are now ready to start installing Gentoo (chapter 5 in the handbook). Also see my previous post about CFLAGS, which might explain why I've chosen some particular settings. First, we need to extract the stage 1 tarball.
# date
# ls /mnt/cdrom/stages
# cd /mnt/gentoo
# tar -xvjpf /mnt/cdrom/stages/stage1-x86-20040218.tar.bz2
# ls /mnt/cdrom/snapshots
# tar -xvjf /mnt/cdrom/snapshots/portage-20040223.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo/usr
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles
# cp /mnt/cdrom/distfiles/* /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles/
# nano -w /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf
Now we need to configure the base compile options. Here's the content of my make.conf file (use at your own risk). Be sure to go look at 5.e. Configuring the Compile Options in the Gentoo Handbook. Also look at Gentoo USE flags and Gentoo Linux USE Variable Descriptions. I've set some very aggressive USE flags in my make.conf file (anything to do with graphics or multimedia since this is a headless file server) and I don't know whether it's proper to remove all of those USE flags yet. Note that even though the USE= line shown here is spread across two lines, it should be all one line in the actual make.conf file (the line break here is for visual clarity only).
CFLAGS="-Os -march=i586 -m3dnow -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i586-pc-linux-gnu"
USE="apache2 kerberos ldap -apm -gif -gnome -gtk -jpeg -kde -mad -mikmod -mpeg
-oggvorbis -opengl -oss -pdflib -png -qt -quicktime -sdl -truetype -xmms -xv"
CXXFLAGS="$(CFLAGS)"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
Next we're ready to install the base system, see 6. Installing the Gentoo Base System in the Gentoo Handbook.
# mirrorselect -a -s4 -o | grep -ve '^Netselect' >> /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf
# cp -L /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf /mnt/gentoo/boot/make.conf-backupcopy
# cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf
# cp -L /etc/raidtab /mnt/gentoo/etc/raidtab
# cp -L /etc/raidtab /mnt/gentoo/boot/raidtab-backupcopy
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/etc/lvm
# cp -L /etc/lvm/lvm.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/lvm/lvm.conf
# cp -L /etc/lvm/lvm.conf /mnt/gentoo/boot/lvm.conf-backupcopy
# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
# env-update
# source /etc/profile
# emerge sync
Synchronization of the portage tree will take a while (depending on the speed of your internet connection and how fast your system is). My system downloaded 60MB or so worth of updates and took 30-60 minutes (at a guess). Meanwhile, I'll continue this topic in my next post.
Gentoo Install 1 (VIA EPIA ME6000)
Going to rebuild my VIA EPIA Gentoo linux server. While the current setup was fine, I've decided that I want to switch to use a pair of matched 5400rpm drives and software RAID1. The configuration is identical to the old drive configuration, except that I'm now using a pair of 300GB 5400rpm Maxtor drives. The power draw seems to be well within the limits of the tiny power-supply in the Morex Venus 668 case.
I'm going to skip some of the initial information about my setup as all of that really hasn't changed. Shared video memory is still only 32MB instead of the default 128MB, and I've turned off all of the ports and devices that I'm not going to use (leaving only ethernet, firewire and USB ports active). I'm still using the Gentoo 2004.0 Universal CD as my bootstrap system.
Start by booting up the Gentoo Universal CD, as soon as you see the "boot:" prompt, enter the following command (which hopefully fixes the shutdown/lockup issue I had at the end of the last install):
The LiveCD will then boot up, now load the md and dm-mod modules. Prior to loading these two modules, "/proc/mdstat" will not exist:
It's possible that your ethernet card on the VIA EPIA ME6000 will not be detected. To fix this, you'll need to load the via-rhine module by hand, and then reconfigure your network adapters.
Create partitions using fdisk. I want a 64MB /boot partition, a 2048MB swap partition, a 2048MB root partition, and the rest set aside for LVM. Also see the gentoo install documentation section on preparing the disks.
Verify your configuration. My system had (4) primary partitions, with the first partition marked as active ('*' under the "Boot" column). Now, write the partition table to disk (be sure everything is correct).
Repeat the above for the 2nd disk in the array (/dev/hdc in my case).
Create your "/etc/raidtab" configuration file (I used "nano -w /etc/raidtab", but other text editors will work).
Create the raid set(s).
If you get the error message: "raid_disks + spare_disks != nr_disks" when attempting to create any of your RAID sets, go back and verify your "/etc/raidtab" file as well as verifying your disk partitions. The RAID sets will build in the background and you should periodically monitor their progress using "cat /proc/mdstat". Another possibility is that you have set the "chunk-size" setting to be too small or too large (e.g. "chunk-size 4" did not work for me, but "chunk size 8" worked fine).
Since it's going to take 150 minutes to prep that last RAID volume, I'm going to pick this up again later. Data rate according to "cat /proc/mdstat" is around 30MB/sec, which is about what I'd expect for a 5400rpm PATA drive.
I'm going to skip some of the initial information about my setup as all of that really hasn't changed. Shared video memory is still only 32MB instead of the default 128MB, and I've turned off all of the ports and devices that I'm not going to use (leaving only ethernet, firewire and USB ports active). I'm still using the Gentoo 2004.0 Universal CD as my bootstrap system.
Start by booting up the Gentoo Universal CD, as soon as you see the "boot:" prompt, enter the following command (which hopefully fixes the shutdown/lockup issue I had at the end of the last install):
boot: gentoo nohotplug
The LiveCD will then boot up, now load the md and dm-mod modules. Prior to loading these two modules, "/proc/mdstat" will not exist:
# modprobe md
# modprobe dm-mod
It's possible that your ethernet card on the VIA EPIA ME6000 will not be detected. To fix this, you'll need to load the via-rhine module by hand, and then reconfigure your network adapters.
# modprobe via-rhine
# net-setup eth0
# ifconfig
Create partitions using fdisk. I want a 64MB /boot partition, a 2048MB swap partition, a 2048MB root partition, and the rest set aside for LVM. Also see the gentoo install documentation section on preparing the disks.
# ls /dev/hd*
# fdisk /dev/hda
Command: n
Command action: p
Partition number: 1
First cylinder: 1
Last cylinder: +64M
Command: a
Partition number: 1
Command: t
Hex code: fd
Command: n
Command action: p
Partition number: 2
First cylinder: [enter]
Last cylinder: +2048M
Command: t
Partition number: 2
Hex code: fd
Command: n
Command action: p
Partition number: 3
First cylinder: [enter]
Last cylinder: +2048M
Command: t
Partition number: 3
Hex code: fd
Command: n
Command action: p
First cylinder: [enter]
Last cylinder: [enter]
Command: t
Partition number: 4
Hex code: fd
Command: p
Verify your configuration. My system had (4) primary partitions, with the first partition marked as active ('*' under the "Boot" column). Now, write the partition table to disk (be sure everything is correct).
Command: w
#
Repeat the above for the 2nd disk in the array (/dev/hdc in my case).
Create your "/etc/raidtab" configuration file (I used "nano -w /etc/raidtab", but other text editors will work).
# this config is for mirroring /dev/hda with /dev/hdc
# /boot (RAID1)
raiddev /dev/md0
raid-level 1
nr-raid-disks 2
nr-spare-disks 0
chunk-size 32
persistent-superblock 1
device /dev/hda1
raid-disk 0
device /dev/hdc1
raid-disk 1
# *swap* (RAID1)
raiddev /dev/md1
raid-level 1
nr-raid-disks 2
nr-spare-disks 0
chunk-size 8
persistent-superblock 1
device /dev/hda2
raid-disk 0
device /dev/hdc2
raid-disk 1
# / (RAID1)
raiddev /dev/md2
raid-level 1
nr-raid-disks 2
nr-spare-disks 0
chunk-size 32
persistent-superblock 1
device /dev/hda3
raid-disk 0
device /dev/hdc3
raid-disk 1
# LVM (RAID1)
raiddev /dev/md3
raid-level 1
nr-raid-disks 2
nr-spare-disks 0
chunk-size 16
persistent-superblock 1
device /dev/hda4
raid-disk 0
device /dev/hdc4
raid-disk 1
# end of /etc/raidtab
Create the raid set(s).
# mkraid /dev/md0
# mkraid /dev/md1
# mkraid /dev/md2
# mkraid /dev/md3
If you get the error message: "raid_disks + spare_disks != nr_disks" when attempting to create any of your RAID sets, go back and verify your "/etc/raidtab" file as well as verifying your disk partitions. The RAID sets will build in the background and you should periodically monitor their progress using "cat /proc/mdstat". Another possibility is that you have set the "chunk-size" setting to be too small or too large (e.g. "chunk-size 4" did not work for me, but "chunk size 8" worked fine).
Since it's going to take 150 minutes to prep that last RAID volume, I'm going to pick this up again later. Data rate according to "cat /proc/mdstat" is around 30MB/sec, which is about what I'd expect for a 5400rpm PATA drive.
LVM and Software RAID
Links:
Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM) on Software RAID - explains the benefits of using LVM, and also how to get LVM running on top of software RAID in RedHat 8.
Google search for how to do software RAID and LVM
The Software-RAID HOWTO - Updated June 2004, so it's not an old outdated document. Also see the official URL.
Gentoo Server Project Wiki
Notes on Building a Linux Storage Server
Gentoo Forums: How to do a gentoo install on a software RAID - Thread was started back in July 2002, but there are posts as recently as June 2004.
Summary:
The "grub" boot loader needs a real physical partition to boot from (or possibly a RAID1 setup, RAID0 definitely doesn't work). What some folks do is to create (2) identical physical partitions on the drives in the RAID array, and then periodically copy from the primary partition to the secondary partition. (See gentoo forum post or search for user "wrex". Also look for posts by "hover" or "blake121666") The copy command is as simple as "dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdb1 bs=8192b". You need to customize that to match your configuration (e.g. changing the source/dest partitions and the block size). If I can puzzle it all out, I think I'm going to go with /boot on RAID1. See section 7.3 of the Software RAID HOWTO
The "swap" partition should be mirrored. Otherwise when the disk fails, existing applications with data in the swap partition of the failed drive will die a nasty death. See section 2.3 of the Software RAID HOWTO.
There's a special set of command that need to be done in "grub" if you want to be able to pull the primary disk and still have the system bootable. (In case the primary disk would fail.) This is all mentioned in the gentoo forums thread about software RAID, look for the post by "hover". Alternatively, you can simply use a boot floppy and fixup the grub settings after the primary drive fails.
Replacing a failed disk in a software RAID1 array requires partitioning the drive by hand prior to rebuilding the array. This is also mentioned in the gentoo forums thread about software RAID, look for the post by "hover".
Searching around on my Gentoo 2004.0 Universal CD, I don't see the "mdadm" tools anywhere, but I do see "raidtools".
Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM) on Software RAID - explains the benefits of using LVM, and also how to get LVM running on top of software RAID in RedHat 8.
Google search for how to do software RAID and LVM
The Software-RAID HOWTO - Updated June 2004, so it's not an old outdated document. Also see the official URL.
Gentoo Server Project Wiki
Notes on Building a Linux Storage Server
Gentoo Forums: How to do a gentoo install on a software RAID - Thread was started back in July 2002, but there are posts as recently as June 2004.
Summary:
The "grub" boot loader needs a real physical partition to boot from (or possibly a RAID1 setup, RAID0 definitely doesn't work). What some folks do is to create (2) identical physical partitions on the drives in the RAID array, and then periodically copy from the primary partition to the secondary partition. (See gentoo forum post or search for user "wrex". Also look for posts by "hover" or "blake121666") The copy command is as simple as "dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdb1 bs=8192b". You need to customize that to match your configuration (e.g. changing the source/dest partitions and the block size). If I can puzzle it all out, I think I'm going to go with /boot on RAID1. See section 7.3 of the Software RAID HOWTO
The "swap" partition should be mirrored. Otherwise when the disk fails, existing applications with data in the swap partition of the failed drive will die a nasty death. See section 2.3 of the Software RAID HOWTO.
There's a special set of command that need to be done in "grub" if you want to be able to pull the primary disk and still have the system bootable. (In case the primary disk would fail.) This is all mentioned in the gentoo forums thread about software RAID, look for the post by "hover". Alternatively, you can simply use a boot floppy and fixup the grub settings after the primary drive fails.
Replacing a failed disk in a software RAID1 array requires partitioning the drive by hand prior to rebuilding the array. This is also mentioned in the gentoo forums thread about software RAID, look for the post by "hover".
Searching around on my Gentoo 2004.0 Universal CD, I don't see the "mdadm" tools anywhere, but I do see "raidtools".
Labels: LVM, SoftwareRAID
IMAP Service Providers
IMAP Service Providers: A Step in Dealing with Viruses, Spam, and Email Overload - A very in-depth listing of what companies provide IMAP mail service.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Xenu's Link Sleuth
This is one of those indispensable tools for any web developer. Xenu's Link Sleuth is a nice, simple, easy-to-use, tool that will crawl any URL and report back on the status of every link. When it's finished you have the option to generate a report, or just look at the results grid.
(I used this on my site over the weekend... fixed a few dozen errors. So hopefully, nobody sees any broken internal links. External links, OTOH, I have not checked recently.)
(I used this on my site over the weekend... fixed a few dozen errors. So hopefully, nobody sees any broken internal links. External links, OTOH, I have not checked recently.)
Monitor calibration
The Monitor calibration and Gamma assessment page - While not the easiest to use, I did get the best results using it. (I set my gamma to 1.8.)
Monitor Calibration and Gamma - The explanation is extremely technical (which is good), but the explanation of how to do the adjustments is a bit vague.
Now, on my Toshiba Tecra 9100, the S3 display utility has a gamma setting tool. The values that I ended up with were Gamma 1.00, Brightness 1.07, Contrast 0.65.
(Of course, this means I'll need to adjust my color scheme again. It now looks too gray, when I wanted a hint of blue. See my color space.)
Monitor Calibration and Gamma - The explanation is extremely technical (which is good), but the explanation of how to do the adjustments is a bit vague.
Now, on my Toshiba Tecra 9100, the S3 display utility has a gamma setting tool. The values that I ended up with were Gamma 1.00, Brightness 1.07, Contrast 0.65.
(Of course, this means I'll need to adjust my color scheme again. It now looks too gray, when I wanted a hint of blue. See my color space.)
Saturday, June 12, 2004
More CSS 4-panel layout using DIVs (attempt #2)
1) Removed the "Main" DIV tag from the previous attempt. (Go look at BlueRobot.com's 2-panel layout.)
2) Decided that I liked the look of CSS Layout Techniques: for Fun and Profit where the side-bar menu is on the right, which allows text to fill the width of the window once you scroll down past the end. That looks more natural then a left side menu with a fixed left margin. Internet Explorer 6 also seems to like that layout a bit better. (BlueRobot.com's 2-panel right menu layout)
HTML and CSS (see what it looks like, short-body version):
Bugs:
2) Decided that I liked the look of CSS Layout Techniques: for Fun and Profit where the side-bar menu is on the right, which allows text to fill the width of the window once you scroll down past the end. That looks more natural then a left side menu with a fixed left margin. Internet Explorer 6 also seems to like that layout a bit better. (BlueRobot.com's 2-panel right menu layout)
HTML and CSS (see what it looks like, short-body version):
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>CSS 4-panel layout example #2 (June 2004)</title>
<style media="screen" type="text/css">
body {
background-color: White;
color: Black;
font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
}
#TopNav {
background-color: Fuchsia;
padding: 2px;
}
#SideBar {
background-color: Gray;
float: right;
width: 15%;
}
#BlogBody {
background-color: Orange;
padding: 2px;
}
#Footer {
background-color: Purple;
clear: right;
padding: 2px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="TopNav">foo foo foo foo foo foo</div>
<div id="SideBar">sidebar<br>sidebar<br><br>sidebar<br>sidebar<br>sidebar<br>sidebar</div>
<div id="BlogBody">
blog body blog body blog
</div>
<div id="Footer">footer-copyright</div>
</body>
</html>
Bugs:
- [IE5/Windows]: It's possible that this layout will not work properly on Internet Explorer 5 for MS-Windows. I suspect that IE5's quirks won't really matter in this particular layout, but I have yet to test it.
CSS 4-panel layout using DIVs
You'd think it would be simple, right? Oh, young grasshopper, you have much to learn! Actually, it's not all that bad, just tedious to get a layout up and running. Took me about 2 hours of trial-n-error, and looking at some of the sites over at the CSS Zen Garden. Finally, Michael Pick's blog entry about the CSS Zen Garden proved to be the most useful as I teased apart his DIVs and his CSS file. Mike's page was already close to the layout that I wanted and his CSS file was pretty simple.
My goal for this blog's design is a navigation bar across the top of the page, a footer at the bottom of the page, a side-bar containing links to the various archive pages, and a main body that is 80-85% of the page width. This is somewhat similar to the diagram under section 9.6.1 (Fixed positioning) of the W3C.org CSS2 Specification, except that I don't want to use fixed positioning.
First, start with the following HTML file (see what it looks like):
Yes, those are very ugly colors. But it does make it very easy to see where the various panels have ended up on the page.
Bugs:
My goal for this blog's design is a navigation bar across the top of the page, a footer at the bottom of the page, a side-bar containing links to the various archive pages, and a main body that is 80-85% of the page width. This is somewhat similar to the diagram under section 9.6.1 (Fixed positioning) of the W3C.org CSS2 Specification, except that I don't want to use fixed positioning.
First, start with the following HTML file (see what it looks like):
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>CSS 4-panel layout example (June 2004)</title>
<style media="screen" type="text/css">
body {
background-color: White;
color: Black;
font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
#Main {
background-color: Blue;
}
#TopNav {
background-color: Fuchsia;
margin: 0;
padding: 2px;
}
#SideBar {
background-color: Gray;
clear: none;
float: left;
margin-top: 0px;
padding: 2px;
width: 14%;
}
#BlogBody {
background-color: Orange;
height: 200px; /* must be larger then height of SideBar to fix IE6 glitch */
margin-bottom: 10px;
margin-left: 15%;
margin-top: 10px;
padding: 2px;
}
#Footer {
background-color: Purple;
clear: both;
padding: 2px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="Main">
<div id="TopNav">foo foo foo foo foo foo</div>
<div id="SideBar">sidebar<br>sidebar<br><br>sidebar<br>sidebar<br>sidebar<br>sidebar</div>
<div id="BlogBody">
blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body blog body
</div>
<div id="Footer">footer-copyright</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Yes, those are very ugly colors. But it does make it very easy to see where the various panels have ended up on the page.
Bugs:
- [IE6] If the content of the "BlogBody" DIV does not contain enough text to make the height of the DIV more then that of the "SideBar" DIV then the body panel will not display properly. The work-around is to specify a CSS height value that is larger then the height of the "SideBar" DIV. I'm going to play around with the design some more and see if I can get rid of that issue (and get the side-bar to be the full height of the page).
CSS quick links
W3C's Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 CSS2 Specification - This is the source for what CSS is supposed to look like. However, it generally avoids talking about what is supported in the real-world.
EchoEcho.com's CSS Tutorial - Covers the basics of CSS.
Dave Raggett's Introduction to CSS - A short guide to using CSS on your web pages.
TopStyle - a CSS editor.
CSS Zen Garden, Resources - Pointers to various articles about CSS layout techniques.
From Table Hacks to CSS Layout: A Web Designer’s Journey - By Jeffrey Zeldman, it talks about the problems with the box model in IE5/Windows and other issues regarding layout.
The Layout Reservoir - A small collection of CSS layout designs by BlueRobot.com.
CSS Boxes - Problem & Workaround Set for a series of CSS Boxes going from a simple single box, through 3 columns with a full width top box, all with variations.
CSS Layout Techniques: for Fun and Profit - Catalog of cross-browser CSS layout techniques.
EchoEcho.com's CSS Tutorial - Covers the basics of CSS.
Dave Raggett's Introduction to CSS - A short guide to using CSS on your web pages.
TopStyle - a CSS editor.
CSS Zen Garden, Resources - Pointers to various articles about CSS layout techniques.
From Table Hacks to CSS Layout: A Web Designer’s Journey - By Jeffrey Zeldman, it talks about the problems with the box model in IE5/Windows and other issues regarding layout.
The Layout Reservoir - A small collection of CSS layout designs by BlueRobot.com.
CSS Boxes - Problem & Workaround Set for a series of CSS Boxes going from a simple single box, through 3 columns with a full width top box, all with variations.
CSS Layout Techniques: for Fun and Profit - Catalog of cross-browser CSS layout techniques.
Auditing tools for Windows
fsum by SlavaSoft - (free) Creates md5 signature files compatible with the md5sum command line tool (found on most unix/linux distros), but has the additional feature of directory recursion. The tool also supports other checksum/hash functions.
DumpSec by SomarSoft - (free) This tool used to be called DumpACL back in the days of Windows NT 4.0. It has been re-released to report on the newer ACL information in an Active Directory Domain (Windows 2000), plus it has the option to dump out lists of users, groups, policies, shares, registry ACLs, and a few more goodies. Output is either an interactive report viewer, a custom save file format, or various report file styles.
rsync - (free) While not strictly an auditing tool, rsync is useful for pushing/pulling log files off of a server onto a better protected server for long-term storage. The primary advantage is that rsync will only send the portions of a file that have changed, reducing transfer traffic. It also supports compression of the transfer and you can route the information through ssh for security. The version I use is cwRSync, which is a streamlined version of the Microsoft Windows port that doesn't require the full Cygwin application to be installed.
DumpSec by SomarSoft - (free) This tool used to be called DumpACL back in the days of Windows NT 4.0. It has been re-released to report on the newer ACL information in an Active Directory Domain (Windows 2000), plus it has the option to dump out lists of users, groups, policies, shares, registry ACLs, and a few more goodies. Output is either an interactive report viewer, a custom save file format, or various report file styles.
rsync - (free) While not strictly an auditing tool, rsync is useful for pushing/pulling log files off of a server onto a better protected server for long-term storage. The primary advantage is that rsync will only send the portions of a file that have changed, reducing transfer traffic. It also supports compression of the transfer and you can route the information through ssh for security. The version I use is cwRSync, which is a streamlined version of the Microsoft Windows port that doesn't require the full Cygwin application to be installed.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Installing cwRSync on Windows 2000
The instructions over at cwRSync's install page are a bit vague, so I'm going to jot down the steps that I use. These steps are for installing rsync in a server configuration. Since the install process needs to (optionally) create an user account and create a new service, you'll need administrative access to the machine that you are using. (I'm not sure whether members of the Power Users group have enough privileges.)
Next, we need to finish setting up the RSync service in Windows.
You need to configure the rsyncd.conf file and set up your first "module" (a.k.a. a share path). Find your rsyncd.conf file (it's in the folder where you installed cwRSync to) and open it up in a text editor (NotePad works). Now, go read the official rsyncd.conf help page. Read it twice if it's your first time, because it's possible to put a very large gaping security hole into your setup if you're not careful. The default settings at the top of the file are fine, but you may wish to change the "hosts allow = *" to "hosts allow = (your client machine IPs)" as a preventative first step. Then, even if you screw up the other security mechanisms, you've at least limited which IP addresses an attacker can base an attack from. (You can test this by telnet'ing to port 873 and seeing whether the rsync service drops your connection.)
Next, we need to start setting up "modules" in the rsyncd.conf file. "Modules" are basically the same concept as a Windows share, except that you have to use rsync to access the files within the "module". Ignore what it says on the cwRSync install page about rsync modules having to be sub-directories under the cwrsync folder. If you grant correct directory permissions to the cwRSync service account, then the service daemon will be able to read or read/write to the target folders without problems.
The default module installed is called "test". Go ahead and comment it out with '#' symbols and save the file. From my (limited) testing, it does not appear to be necessary to restart the rsync service in order for it to see changes in the rsyncd.conf file.
There are two basic ways to use rsync and this will affect how you grant permissions to the rsync service account.
The first is a read-only ("pull") setup, where the clients can only pull files from the rsync server. The rsync service account should only have Read & Execute / List Folder Contents / Read permissions for the folder tree that you are going to publish. In addition, when you setup your module in the configuration file, you should specify "read only = true" as a setting.
The second is a "push" setup where clients are writing changes to the rsync server. The rsync service account will require "modify" permissions for the shared directory tree. Under your module configuration section in the rsyncd.conf file, a "push" setup must have "read only = false".
Now, for every directory tree on the rsync server that you wish to share, create a new module section (e.g. "[logs]" or "[web]" or "[joes_backup]"). Verify that the cwRSync service account has proper permissions to the file system tree. Then add the following options (at a minimum) below the module section name:
That allows any client who manages to authenticate with the rsync service to write the E:\Backup\Joe on the rsync server. That is not exactly secure and you should take additional steps to lock it down through the use of "hosts allow", "auth users", "secrets file" and perhaps ssh. Securing your box is a bit beyond the scope of this post. It's also a bit beyond my experience level since I'm just getting started with rsync.
(Update: See Securing cwRSync.)
- Download cwRSync, open up the ZIP file, then extract/run cwRsync_x.x.x_Installer.exe.
- Answer "Yes" when asked if you want to continue with the install.
- Answer "Yes" when asked if you want to install cwRSync as a Windows Service.
- Specify the installation folder where you want to install cwRSync. My personal preference is "c:\bin\cwrsync" instead of the default since our servers already have various command line tools installed under c:\bin.
- Enter the account name and password of the local user account that you are going to use for the cwRSync service. It's a good idea to use a seperate account for the cwRSync service, but you may also specify an existing account name.
- The upload area can be set to anything. In fact, you'll probably be removing whatever you set here when you configure your rsyncd.conf file. For now, set it to be a sub-folder under where you installed the cwRSync executables to.
- Click the "Install" button. The installer will then create the folder where cwRSync is being installed to, (optionally) create the user account for the cwRSync service, and it will set restrictive permissions on the install folder so that only the service's user account has rights.
- That takes care of the basics. If you want, view the installation details prior to exiting the install program and cleaning up. Read the instructions on the popup dialog.
Next, we need to finish setting up the RSync service in Windows.
- Right-click on My Computer, pick "Manage".
- In the left panel, scroll down and open up the "Services and Applications" tree, then select "Services".
- Locate the "RsyncServer" service and double-click to open up the properties dialog.
- "General" tab: Change the "Startup type" setting to "Automatic".
- "Log On" tab: Re-type the password for the user account that you're using. Click the "Apply" button to save your changes and Windows will popup a notification that the user account has been granted the rights to logon as a service.
- "Recovery" tab: Change these to match your preferences. My personal preference is to restart the service on the first two failures, do nothing on subsequent failures, reseting the fail count after 1 day and restarting the service after a delay of 30 minutes.
- Click "OK" to save and exit.
- Don't start the service yet, the rsyncd.conf file needs to be configured first.
You need to configure the rsyncd.conf file and set up your first "module" (a.k.a. a share path). Find your rsyncd.conf file (it's in the folder where you installed cwRSync to) and open it up in a text editor (NotePad works). Now, go read the official rsyncd.conf help page. Read it twice if it's your first time, because it's possible to put a very large gaping security hole into your setup if you're not careful. The default settings at the top of the file are fine, but you may wish to change the "hosts allow = *" to "hosts allow = (your client machine IPs)" as a preventative first step. Then, even if you screw up the other security mechanisms, you've at least limited which IP addresses an attacker can base an attack from. (You can test this by telnet'ing to port 873 and seeing whether the rsync service drops your connection.)
Next, we need to start setting up "modules" in the rsyncd.conf file. "Modules" are basically the same concept as a Windows share, except that you have to use rsync to access the files within the "module". Ignore what it says on the cwRSync install page about rsync modules having to be sub-directories under the cwrsync folder. If you grant correct directory permissions to the cwRSync service account, then the service daemon will be able to read or read/write to the target folders without problems.
The default module installed is called "test". Go ahead and comment it out with '#' symbols and save the file. From my (limited) testing, it does not appear to be necessary to restart the rsync service in order for it to see changes in the rsyncd.conf file.
[test]
path = /cygdrive/c/cwrsync/data
read only = false
transfer logging = yes
There are two basic ways to use rsync and this will affect how you grant permissions to the rsync service account.
The first is a read-only ("pull") setup, where the clients can only pull files from the rsync server. The rsync service account should only have Read & Execute / List Folder Contents / Read permissions for the folder tree that you are going to publish. In addition, when you setup your module in the configuration file, you should specify "read only = true" as a setting.
The second is a "push" setup where clients are writing changes to the rsync server. The rsync service account will require "modify" permissions for the shared directory tree. Under your module configuration section in the rsyncd.conf file, a "push" setup must have "read only = false".
Now, for every directory tree on the rsync server that you wish to share, create a new module section (e.g. "[logs]" or "[web]" or "[joes_backup]"). Verify that the cwRSync service account has proper permissions to the file system tree. Then add the following options (at a minimum) below the module section name:
[joes_backup]
path = /cygdrive/e/backup/joe
read only = false
That allows any client who manages to authenticate with the rsync service to write the E:\Backup\Joe on the rsync server. That is not exactly secure and you should take additional steps to lock it down through the use of "hosts allow", "auth users", "secrets file" and perhaps ssh. Securing your box is a bit beyond the scope of this post. It's also a bit beyond my experience level since I'm just getting started with rsync.
(Update: See Securing cwRSync.)
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