I started the copy from my Mac, however halfway through my Mac crashed   After a restart I decided to start the copy again.  So, my plan was to cd to POCKET and `rm -rf` everything…However, by some horrible fate, I typed the path to my media folder by default and went ahead with `rm -rf *`.

I only noticed about 30 seconds later what was happening…Bit by bit, my data was being de-referenced, left for ZFS to write over it with something else…My first thought was “It’s OK, I’ve got a mirror!”, however, the mirror is, of course, in real time…My second thought was “ZFS snapshots!”, however, they are not enabled by default

I have spent the last few weeks slowly re-ripping my collection (though thanks to James as he had copies of a lot of content), I’ve still got a few to do, but I’m mostly there.  I turned on ZFS snapshots too.  I access my server though SSH from my Mac, so here’s what I did:

ben@faegilath>$ ssh -X beleg-ia -l admin
Password:
admin@beleg-ia:~$ time-slider-setup

I was then presented with the screen on the left

As you can see, you can just tick the box saying “enable time slider” and the choose to snapshot all filesystems or select what filesystems you do want to snapshot.

root@beleg-ia:/share/media# zpool status
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
scrub: none requested
config:

NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool       ONLINE       0     0     0
mirror    ONLINE       0     0     0
c4d0s0  ONLINE       0     0     0
c4d1s0  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

pool: share
state: ONLINE
scrub: none requested
config:

NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
share       ONLINE       0     0     0
mirror    ONLINE       0     0     0
c5d0s0  ONLINE       0     0     0
c5d1s0  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

The above was achieved by doing something similar to this:
# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c4d0s0 | fmthard -s – /dev/rdsk/c4d1s0
# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c4d0s0 | fmthard -s – /dev/rdsk/c5d0s0
# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c4d0s0 | fmthard -s – /dev/rdsk/c5d1s0
# zpool attach -f rpool c4d0s0 c4d1s0
# zpool attach -f share c5d0s0 c5d1s0

First we print the vtoc (volume table of contents) and pipe that to a format command.
The -f was used to force the attachment, I followed instructions from several other sources and all has worked for me.

The ‘share’ pool is auto-mounted to /share which is cool.  Now with file systems galore using ZFS, `zfs list` give me the following output:

root@beleg-ia:/share/media# zfs list
NAME                            USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
rpool                          33.1G   424G    75K  /rpool
rpool/ROOT                     4.79G   424G    18K  legacy
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris         5.42M   424G  2.27G  /
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-1       4.79G   424G  4.55G  /
rpool/dump                     1018M   424G  1018M  -
rpool/export                   26.3G   424G    19K  /export
rpool/export/home              26.3G   424G    21K  /export/home
rpool/export/home/admin        28.8M   424G  28.8M  /export/home/admin
rpool/export/home/ben          26.3G   424G  26.3G  /export/home/ben
rpool/export/home/ben/backups  20.4M   424G  20.4M  /export/home/ben/backups
rpool/swap                     1018M   425G  31.9M  -
share                           126G   331G    19K  /share
share/media                     126G   331G    27K  /share/media
share/media/iTunes             5.66G   331G  5.66G  /share/media/iTunes
share/media/misc                911M   331G   911M  /share/media/misc
share/media/movies             61.8G   331G  61.8G  /share/media/movies
share/media/pictures            425M   331G   425M  /share/media/pictures
share/media/standup            5.32G   331G  5.32G  /share/media/standup
share/media/torip              4.50G   331G  4.50G  /share/media/torip
share/media/tv                 47.7G   331G  47.7G  /share/media/tv

So I’m pretty happy with it at the moment.  I’ll be looking at upgrading the motherboard next.  Something with 8 SATA channels so I can increase my hdd’s and potentially create a RAIDz for 4x 1TB drives…But we’ll have to see how funds go…

I wanted a way for me to access my server when I wasn’t on the local network.  A friend pointed me to DynDNS, this will give you a domain name (e.g. myname.something.com) which you can update to point to your IP.  However, you need a method for updating the DNS entry, this is needed because everytime I switch off my modem and turn it back on, Tiscali give me a new IP.

So, my OpenSolaris box will need to update DynDNS.
DynDNS have a couple of scripts for doing this, and how to install/run them.  Clicky.  I chose to use inadyn (here).
Only problem now is, I’ve got to make it run!  And I really didn’t want to run it at boot every time…So it was an excellent excuse to play with SMF!

I moved the script to /lib/svc/method/inadyn-exe and created a config file in /etc/inadyn.conf
Here is my config file with some of the more important data spoofed:

admin@beleg-ia:~$ cat /etc/inadyn.conf
--username user1
--password password
--update_period 6000
--background
--alias myserver.example.com

I then created a new manifest for SMF.  The manifest file is written in XML and tells SMF what the service is, what services it depends on, what services depend on it, what to do when enabling it, what to do when disabling it and much more.
My manifest looks like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM “/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1″>
<!–
This service will kick off inadyn-exe which will update my IP
Address should it change.
Ben Lavery has an account with dyndns.com
Hostname is:
myserver.example.com
–>

<service_bundle type=’manifest’ name=’SUNWcsr:ip-update’>

<service
name=’site/ip-update’
type=’service’
version=’1′>

<create_default_instance enabled=’false’ />

<–! Only create 1 instance –>
<single_instance/>

<!– Depend on the network being up –>
<dependency
name=’milestone’
grouping=’require_all’
restart_on=’error’
type=’service’>
<service_fmri value=’svc:/milestone/network’ />
</dependency>

<!– Depend on the config file existing –>
<dependency
name=’config_data’
grouping=’require_all’
restart_on=’restart’
type=’path’>
<service_fmri value=’file://localhost/etc/inadyn.conf’ />
</dependency>

<!– execute /lib/svc/method/inadyn-exe when svcadm enable is issued –>
<exec_method
type=’method’
name=’start’
exec=’/lib/svc/method/inadyn-exe’
timeout_seconds=’60′ />

<!– Kill the process when svcadm disable is issued –>
<exec_method
type=’method’
name=’stop’
exec=’:kill’
timeout_seconds=’60′ />

<template>
<common_name>
<loctext xml:lang=’C'>
IP updator
</loctext>
</common_name>
<documentation>
<manpage title=” section=”
manpath=” />
</documentation>
</template>
</service>

</service_bundle>

So, after placing this in /var/svc/manifest/site/ and calling it ip-update.xml I ran it through an XML checker:
# xmllint ip-update.xml
<output ommited>

Then I imported it into the SMF repository:
# svccfg
svc:>  validate ip-update.xml
svc:>  import ip-update.xml

After this I was able to use `svcadm enable ip-update` to start the service, though it will start up after the network service has started.  If the service goes down SMF will try to restart it for me!  Even after two months it keeps DynDNS updated and I can happily SSH in from outside my home network!

NB: You may need to set up SSH forwarding from your home router.

I have so far set it all up as such:

ben@BELEG-IA:/share/media$ zfs list
NAME                                   USED    AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
rpool                                       26.1G     431G    72K  /rpool
rpool/ROOT                         3.10G    431G    18K  legacy
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris   3.10G   431G  2.96G  /
rpool/dump                        1018M   431G  1018M  -
rpool/export                        640K   431G    19K  /export
rpool/export/home               622K   431G    19K  /export/home
rpool/export/home/ben      602K   431G   602K  /export/home/ben
rpool/share 21.1G   431G    19K  /share
rpool/share/media                      21.1G   431G    33K  /share/media
rpool/share/media/movies 21.1G   431G  21.1G  /share/media/movies
rpool/share/media/music        18K   431G    18K  /share/media/music
rpool/share/media/pictures   18K   431G    18K  /share/media/pictures
rpool/share/media/tv                18K   431G    18K  /share/media/tv
rpool/swap                                           1018M   432G    16K  -

The bold entries are separate file systems I have created using:
zfs create rpool/<file system path>

For ezample:
zfs create rpool/share

I then did the following to allow the file system and all sub systems to be shared over NFS:
zfs set sharenfs=on rpool/share

So far I’ve not set up any sort of snapshotting…

I installed everything as root…
# pkg install SUNWgcc

Simple as that!

Some other packages people might like:
# pkg install SUNWgmake
# pkg install SUNWsvn

These have all come in handy whilst setting up my new server.

So this is my new case:

It’s a nice size, you can see the six brackets for hard drives in the bottom-left of the second picture, just up from those is a seventh bracket, above that there are three spaces for DVD/CD drives or for fan controls etc.

I first fitted the psu, a 380W Antex recommended to me due to it’s 80%+ efficiency rating.

Next came the motherboard and hard drives, look how dwarfed whis Micro-ATX board looks in this case!

The hard drives are screwed into the bracket and then the brackets are screwed into the chassis.

The above picture shows all the wiring complete

Here is my DVD drive mounted in it’s bracket.  A nice black DVD drive would have been nice, but a white one was all I had to hand.

So, boxed up and all plugged in, it looks a bit like this:

And here it is, halfway through the OpenSolaris Installation:

So, for about a month now I was contemplating the hardware I should use.  After reading a few articals, which I have conveniently miss placed, I decided to opt for the following configuration:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400.  Running at 2.8GHz, it uses Intel’s 45nm architecture.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L.  Micro-ATX board with a max of 4GB RAM (2x2GB), four SATA drives and very little else.
RAM: Crucial 2GB DDR2 667MHz, not blindingly fast, but shouldn’t cause too many problems…
Hard drive: Maxtor 500GB SATA2 running at 7200RPM with 32MB of cache
PSU: Antec 380W, 80%+ efficiency.  Looking at a power calculator, I should be able to upgrade to the full four hard drives, max the RAM and still have some spare juice for a couple more fans
Chassis: EV 4U rack mount beast!

The setup was composed for power efficiency, as well as being able to be upgradable later on.