Rockstor does not currently support multi device system install as it uses a btrfs throughout and that is not currently well supported in this scenario by a variety of the associated technologies, ie the version of anaconda we use, grub, and btrfs itself. And that is aside from our own code which does not recognise such as setup.
What we have here is possible a failure in our Quick Start Minimum system requirements doc entry. Although we do state:
“One or more additional hard drives for data (recommended)”
directly after indicating 8GB had disk space for the OS.
The intended meaning here and what is considered generally good practice is to have a physical seperation between the system disk device and the data devices.
Try re-installing to a seperate single device, ie a single hdd / ssd or fast usb device and ignoring or leaving disconnected the intended data disks. Then once you have gained a successful install and chose an update channel (stable is now far ahead of testing) and applied all the associated updates (this can take quite some time so do be patient and ensure the system has completed them all (it should show low cpu activity once completed) you can reboot to get all the new goodness and then go about setting up, via Rockstor’s Web-UI, the data pools and shares (volumes / sub-volumes in btrfs speak).
Hope that helps and please consider suggestions as to how we might avoid others having the same misconception of our Minimum system requirements doc section.
There are possible options for multi disk install but they are far form elegant and currently not well supported and definitely not for first time installers. You may find The Rockstor Install section of the docs useful for what to expect. There is also the Reinstalling Rockstor doc section which as a little more info.
I’m a bit more confused now, you want me to disconnect the hard drives
this means an install onto a USB drive and run the machine from that (which doesn’t sound ideal) and then at some point later add the 6Tb of storage which are currently raw (no file system).
or install on one drive only
which is a bit bizarre as my Fedora PC has 4 drives and they have LVM as the default set-up by the installer
Rockstor’s preferred data arrangement is to use whole disk btrfs. That is each disk is used in it’s entirely, ie no partitions. Except for the system disk which is a normal partition arrangement. But yes currently Rockstor is a single system disk setup. But you can then add, by way of storage for your shares (subvolumes) collections of drives that form Pools (volumes in btrfs) that are then carved up virtually into subvolumes.
Btrfs is a volume managed as well as a filesystem (and in addition also has raid capability) and can use whole disks, ie /dev/sdd, rather than a partition on a disk, ie /dev/sdd1, this removes the need for the partitioning layer and any subsequent ‘value add’ volume managers such as LVM (Logical Volume Manager). Rockstor also does not support LVM installs.
So in short, install the Rockstor OS to a single device, then use the Rockstor Web-UI, not the installer, to manager the physically separate storage devices. This is required as btrfs is as yet not well supported by installers, with Rockstor’s capabilities, once installed, hopefully extending that capability so that one can easily form pools of disks that are in turn a collected resource with which to host subvolumes. Plus one can then alter the underlying structure of for instance the raid level whilst the subvolumes remain intack.
Give it a go and you may see the idea behind this. Single system disk with multiple Rockstor Web-UI initiated and managed whole disk data drives, collected into pools of chosen redundancy levels. Although best to stick with btrfs raid1 or btrfs raid10 for the time being as btrfs raid5/6, the parity raid levels, are not recomended for production use.
Also you don’t need to install the system to a USB key as the system disk, you can use a regular smaller hdd /ssd whatever. But if you do use a USB key make it a good / fast one or you will have problems as the quality of USB keys drops way lower than is generally available in the other formats.
Hope that helps to clarify things. And do take a look at the references I quoted for additional clarity, hopefully.
That didn’t work either - it froze at installing the fonts.
Installing to a smaller HDD then adding a bigger drive later is also less than optimal - there’s only 2 bays available so if I put in a small SSD as a system disc then my NAS will only have 3Tb of storage which is less than the intranet needs
It will help others diagnose an issue for you if you explain exactly what you are attempting. And yes if the physics of you system dictates that you must use a USB device then you have to either go that route and follow my prior advise re good quality fast USB keys ie Sandisk Extreme USB 3,0 (hard to get these days) or it’s untested as yet by me at least cheaper and newer brethren such as the SanDisk Extreme Go USB 3.1, or use a different system. But of course if your NAS only has USB 1.1 (unlikely) then it’s just not going to work out.
I know it can be frustrating, especially given the time you have already put in but once you have appropriate gear you should be able to get up and running. I have a test machine that uses a SanDisk Extreme but is single core and 2 GB RAM.
Make a note here of the USB system drive you are attempting to use and maybe those familiar with it can advice if it is appropriate or not. Or maybe at least try initially installing to a single smaller hdd drive and adding the second larger drive as you data drive just as an experiment to re-assure yourself that it is possible on this hardware. It may be that we have another blocking issue here. You can always, once you have a sutable USB key to use, re-install (via the previously referenced how-to) and import you prior single disk pool and then add a second disk to that existing pool attached via the now freed up smaller disk port. Adding a disk to a pool can be done live and btrfs will spread the existing single copy over to the second disk, assuming raid1 is selected, such that there is then 2 copies of the prior single raid pool; thus translating a prior single data disk to a higher btrfs raid level.
I disconnected one drive from the MoBo, only one drive connected.
the installation halts and the system freezes as it did when there were 2 drives connected.
Today - NO DRIVES connected but a new Sandisk 16Gb flash drive in a USB port and …
the installation halts and the system freezes, there’s no keyboard or mouse input and the only way to do anything is to hold down the power button until the machine shuts down.
So where can I get an earlier version or am I fated to have the only hardware in the world that Rockstor won’t install onto ?
The CPU is capable of running a 64bit OS (it did a week ago when it was running Ubuntu)
there’s nothing in BIOS that suggests that the minimum system requirements aren’t met.
I have to assume that there’s an issue (for me)with the installer or the version of the OS
I’m not overflowing with HDD so I don’t think I can just ‘try installing onto a single smaller HDD’ there are cost issues involved and if I have to go out and spend any more money on this I might as well just buy a proprietary NAS and drop my 6Tb into that.
installed !
however, after a few re-boots and numerous strikes on the carriage return key
I have only 3 lines of any sort of a message.
there’s no web-ui at https://address line
all I can do is log-in as root.
Any idea what was holding up the original install attempts?
The first boot, if left to it, will take quite a number of minutes to setup all that is required. So upon first installing and then rebooting you have to leave the system be for a while before it can be accessed via the Web-UI.
Pressing the Enter key should yield a changed message after a bit, there after you should be able to get to the Web-UI. On my slower test systems single + dual core 2 duo era it can take several minutes to fully prepare the Web-UI, on subsequent boots it’s much quicker. There’s much to be optimised here and work is in progress on that front.
If I just did a default install using the default options what have I done wrong, all I really did was set the time/date/location and select a root password.
But at least you have a working Web-UI. Well done. Kind of promising I would say.
Not really, its down to either a non btrfs root or the use of something like LVM.
An install doesn’t usually take more than a few minutes on regular hardware so I would suggest you give it another go and make sure you go for the default partitioning. I take it you installed via the graphical option, if you went the text route I think it’s easier to get this wrong.
Also our upstream installer sometimes just dives straight in which is irritating as you then don’t get a chance to change language / keyboard settings etc.
I’d reference the Reinstalling Rockstor how to at this point as it details the installer steps to remove the partitions of a prior Rockstor install. You can then compare them to what you find on yours.
Anaconda, out upstream installer, especially the vintage one on our iso, is a little buggy.
jeez
now I have an unknown error during a reinstall and an invitiation from ABRD to upload a report - yay !
I have to say that after 3 days of trying to install the experience isn’t meeting expectation. Whoever said it’s a 20 minute job is lying.
Right - another go at this …
I watched with the same bug, too.
I cannot install it on Supermicro X11SDV-4C-TLN2F.
It was the bug of the installer of CentOS.
When it was an installer of old CentOS, it occurred and did not have any problem when it was an installer of latest CentOS.
Can you have the installer of the base from latest CentOS or Fedora?
@haraoka Welcome to the Rockstor community and thanks for confirming this potential fixed in upstream bug in our now old CenOS installer.
We do have the following issue regarding updating our CentOS installer:
But we also have the following work which is now months into development:
Which in turn would give us far more options for installing Rockstor. I’m hoping to generate both a Leap 15 and a Tumblweed based install for instance. With the Leap 15 being recommended and Tumbleweed as a more experimental option. We have a lot of work to do before that stage though and the referenced post should have updates as we go.
@haraoka Sure, lets say 2019 is at least my guess at the transition year . The previously sighted thread should have all relevant updates. This is a mid term project but one I am keen to press along with. And we should have progressively easier options to ‘trial’ this project as it proceeds.
. The previously sighted thread should have all relevant updates. This is a mid term project but one I am keen to press along with. And we should have progressively easier options to ‘trial’ this project as it proceeds.