I’m planing to replace my aging motherboard, that is currently running Rockstor.
Not because of instability, because it is still rock solid, but some components are showing wear, especially the fan for the CPU. And the CPU is struggling to keep up when re-encoding in plex.
As I have a newer, more powerfull board lying around unused, with everything in good shape, my plan is to simply move all the drives onto the newer motherboard, and try to boot the system. In my experience this will probably work fine.
Else I’ll re-install Rockstor on the new hardware.
What about my license? As far as I know it is somehow tied to the hardware. Will I have to get it renewed somehow? @phillxnet probably knows the answer to this.
No worries on maintaining your existing appliance id if you move the system disk over.
The licence for rockstor-core code is all GPLv2: the subscription is not license based, it’s intended as a mutual support system to assist with Rockstor’s sustainability.
The appliance id is generated during install and keys from the motherboard so that a re-install, on the same motherboard, doesn’t (normally) carry the inconvenience of having to email to get your activation code transferred (our currently admittedly arcane method for arranging this).
As it goes my current priority ‘behind the scenes’ project is in building a self service web app to facilitate this exact thing, ie to manage one’s own appliance id changes where and when they happen. As sometimes, like in your case were you to re-install on the new motherboard, or in the case of known non unique product uuids built into some motherboards, it is inevitable that an appliance id will necessarily change on re-install. The plan is, one will be able to login and edit ones own appliance ids. I’m hoping also to in time add some other nice to have ‘value add’ features such as cloud backup of config etc to this same system but I have to write it first. Hence the recent slow down in rockstor-core. I’ll get there in time and can then focus back on core development. It should all work out for the best all around as we inconvenience less those helping to sustain our efforts and gain more time from less spend on maintaining appliance id transfers on an individual basis. It was always the plan but has just taken far longer than we had intended to get around to it: probably my fault for not stepping up to the task earlier. But it’s still a lot of up front time that is impacting on the prior course of events.
Hope that answers your question and that your drive transfer goes smoothly.
Incidentally, once this system exists would you be interested in alpha / beta testing it? Also any ideas on what people might find useful in the pending ‘Appliance Manager’ web app would be appreciated.
So if I just move my current setup over, it should probably work without issues? Until the day I need to reinstall.
That’s nice to know
I would be happy to help with beta testing if needed.
I could probably set up an extra Rockstor PC for that if that would be beneficial.
I don’t really have many ideas, but perhaps an easy way to renew your subscription, would be welcome. And of course manage your subscription(s) if you reinstall on new hardware.
Probably all things you had already thought about.
Thanks, I’ll PM you nearer the time and once I’ve got something up and running. Probably won’t be pretty to start with but function first as we can always theme it as we go along.
would you be interested in alpha / beta testing it? Also any ideas on what people might find useful in the pending ‘Appliance Manager’ web app would be appreciated.