Hello,
I’m trying to install RS on my custom built NAS. I have a NVME as the system drive and some high capacity sata3 spindle drives. I built the bootable USB with rufus on windows with all the recommended settings. Could anyone point me in the right direction to fix this? I’m a paying customer and I want this in production for my homelab so running the new openSUSE installer is not an option.
Here’s the rdsosreport:
https://pastebin.com/0JKraAUe
@ryann Welcome to the Rockstor community.
Re:
It may be your only option in this case due to the newer hardware. Plus twe are now at Release Candidate 6 (4.0.5) so hopefully fairly close to the next stable release:
If you can manage to build your own installer, for the time being at least, then the result will be fully updated to the time of it’s build. Where as our 3.9.1-0 installer is now years old and is very much showing it’s age. Especially on newer hardware, i.e. nvme etc. Plus our last release for the CentOS based variant was 3.9.2-57 (requiring years of updates from 3.9.1-0 to get there), but our ‘Built on openSUSE’ variant is where we are heading and is the future of the project as a whole. Your existing subscription will pin you to 4.0.4 as a place holder for now but come the time we do release the next Stable version in this flavour your 4.0.4 will then be updated accordingly.
Hope that helps. And once you’ve sussed how to do the DIY installer you will then have that in reserve if you ever end up again needing support for newer hardware as the newest upstream openSUSE kernels are also pre-installed in the installer itself, which is most often the failure point in installs on newer hardware. If you do take the Rockstor 4 route which is ‘Built on openSUSE’ only then do ask here on the forum if you have difficulty with the instructions re the DIY installer build process as a number of forum members are now quite familiar with it.
@ryann Good luck.
And take notes on any issue you have following the instructions in that repo as we are keen to have the process as accessible as possible. As even though it’s a fairly complex operation in itself (building a custom installer) we do stand on the shoulders of the kiwi-ng folk on this one.
And again there are now several forum members who have experience in this method.
If you are familiar with virtual machine setup then you should be good as that’s the most difficult bit really. But once sussed it’s a great tool to be able to build an installer with all otherwise pending updates already in-place. Kind of the opposite of our 3.9.1-0 situation really.
Lest us know how it goes.
So I need to build my own installer for rockstor 4?
@phillxnet So it looks like only the source is avaliable for rockstor4.
Do I need to compile it, build an Installer, and then package it into an ISO?
I don’t see anywhere in the documentation on how to compile it or the steps taken to build it into an ISO. You all publish an ISO in sourceforge only for RCs? Where are the steps documented to take it from source to a bootable ISO?
Does it run through a pipeline?
@ryann Sorry, should have posted the repo again
just cut and paste the commands there into a vanilla openSUSE Leap 15.2 install as per the Readme.
The associated forum thread that introduced this is here:
You just need an openSUSE Leap 15.2 install, say in a virtual machine, in order to get and use the self contained builder. All in the readme in the above repo.
No hand compiling and the iso is build using those instructions and repo. It’s a kiwi-ng configuration that build the iso from start to finish and includes our official rpms within it.
Hope that helps.
@ryann Thanks for the update and glad you got it sorted.
As for easy yes, it does seem so for some but very much not for others and as always it’s down to prior knowledge/experience/familiarity with such things as the virtual machine setup. We do have a range of report from folks on the forum on their experiences with this method so given you have ‘sailed through’ just dandy do please consider chipping in on forum posts regarding this DIY installer recipe as we are very much dependant on folks helping one another in this regard.
It really helps for those with differing experiences to chip in together. And I for one am super keen on promoting knowledge of this DIY installer ability as having seen years of reports of folks having issues that have already been sorted in either upstream or in our own code it is very frustrating for all concerned to have to wait for us to re-issue an installer. This DIY method circumvents this and empowers folks to run an installer pre-loaded with all pending updates. This is particularly useful with new hardware or where a customisation is required, and along those lines it also enables folks to have their own tweaked installers for instance. Aside of course from the fact that they can contribute back their own profiles. That is how we got our Leap15.2.ARM64EFI profile from Mr Ten64 platform forum member @mcbridematt.
Let us know how you get on re the 4 ‘Built on openSUSE’ variant and if possible keep each issue to it’s own forum thread. That makes it easier for folks with specific knowledge of each sub-system to chip in on each thread independantly and makes for easier browsing later.
Cheers.
@phillxnet Sure, I’m actually a devops engineer by day.
Honestly the biggest snag for me was using the opensuse desktop. I didn’t even know how to copy paste in that thing. After reinstalling opensuse with gnome it was a breeze. The second biggest problem (albeit not at all hard for my skill level) was I needed to start sshd, allow it through the firewall, and allow password login so I could scp out the iso. Other than that everything was copy pasted.
I do see a lot of room for improvement in this though. There’s no reason (that I see) as to why it all can’t be containerized and scripted, so the only thing the end user would need to know how to do is install docker, run a command, and have the iso appear.
I’m also not sure what kind of pipeline you have setup for your builds, if any at all. I’d be open to creating an end user pipeline for this or even replace something that could be used both in your pipeline and by the end user, but ideally every single build you all make should output an iso, so the end user would never have to run anything, but I’m sure you already know this.
@ryann Thanks for the feedback, super helpful.
Re:
Agreed. And that would be nice. Fancy doing a pull request :). You could take a look at our community contributed alternative vagrant/virtualbox method which essentially wraps/scripts the exact same method you used. It’s in the vagrant_env sub directory of that same rockstor-installer:
It apparently has a few paper cuts that have appeared more recently due to some shifting sands, see the following forum thread for discussions/developments in this area where the main contributor @mikemonkers and @Hooverdan have been working through the outstanding failings with this scripted method.
Re automated iso building of installer would be very nice. And I believe our current kiwi-ng config could very well work within openSUSE/SuSE’s OBS. But as per the intro in the “Rockstor 4 Installer Recipe - call for beta testers” we are not yet quite ready for official binary downloads. But hopefully all in good time.
Hope that helps and thanks for your input there. Maybe we will have a docker option if the fancy takes you, or other willing contributors. The more options the merrier. But I’d like to keep the kiwi-ng ‘raw’ config as the heart of that repository. However options are good and we could have further documentation to point folks at our various methods depending on what suites their needs/knowledge/comfort levels.