Hi all,
Ive been using rockstor stable branch for a few years uneventfully as a simple file server. My hardware setup is probably one of the simpler ones around here. Two HGST 4TB drives in raid1 with 2 shares, 30GB msata ssd for OS, 8GB ddr3, and a intel dn2800mt atom based board.
Well one of the drives was crapping out, wouldn’t have been issue until i screwed up adding the new one and removing the old one (I hope the replace drive function makes it into 4). Long story short I backed up the meager 700GB of data and am looking at installing the 4.0.4 on the NAS.
I already have the base opensuse 15.2 installed on the NAS and I left the kiwi based rockstor installer building when I left for work. (I resent x-term not allowing the root account to copy and paste into its command line from firefox)
There are some issues with the intel dn2800 video chip that prevented the rockstor 3.9.1 iso from working without an agravating process, opensuse had no issues. I have 2 more similiar NASs physically built for a couple siblings that I would like to complete (With the appropriate licenses and my personal oversight of the things.)
So, my question is, is that kiwi installer iso that is building able to install rockstor on a fully wiped computer? And is a similiar license registration from 3.9.1 integrated into 4.0.4 yet. with the application Id and all that. I assume since its "near release" at least that process is incoming?
I recently installed 4.0.4. I wasn’t 100% sure what was required when I built the installer, so I booted my laptop using an openSUSE 15.1 live boot flash drive. I used that to build the installer. I loaded the installer onto a flash drive, booted my NAS hardware using it, and installed the OS.
So, short answer is, “Yes.” Installing Rockstor via the openSUSE installer that you build yourself is very, very similar to installing Rockstor using the downloadable CentOS installer. You can do it on a fully wiped computer. I do suggest unplugging power and/or sata cables from your large format drives before installation. I don’t know if openSUSE has the issue, but I found that on CentOS, if I left my big drives plugged in, it took HOURS before I could select an installation destination, I think because it was scanning my drives.
The only real difference I’ve seen between CentOS and openSUSE is that CentOS uses ‘yum’ and openSUSE uses ‘zypper’ to install and update packages. I’m sure that there is a LOT of things behind the scenes to make them different, but as a relatively inexperienced Linux user, I can’t really tell the difference.
The only issue I ran into is that my appliance ID was lowercase but the appliance server (I forget the web address, but Rockstor will give it to you as you’re entering the appliance information) had it in all caps. Once that was sorted, everything pretty much just fell into place.
Firstly what @Noggin said, as he beat me to a response here and what follows as my slower response mostly already typed… Although re:
I would say that it is far easier in that there are very few questions in comparison. It’s also many times faster being a lot more simple.
With regard to the 4.0.4 install; yes, once the process has finished successfully you end up with an ISO that is intended to be installed on a bar systems. But whatever is already installed on the target drive (selectable during install) is wiped anyway. The following doc may be helpful in seeing what it does:
It essentially unzipps a pre-formatted disk image onto the target drive and then expands the partitions to take up all the space of the selected to-be system drive.
Also yes re the subscription Stable release thing. If you have or intend to get a Stable subscription, then you can treat it exactly as you did with your CentOS variant. You can also transition any existing stable subscription over to a 4 install from a prior 3 install if you wish with immidiate effect. We have an web app for that:
But Appman is only required if your Appliance ID has changed. If you are installing on the same machine (motherboard) you may very well get the same Appliance ID and in which case you existing activation code will still apply.
Also note that the subscription is not a license as all our code is covered by variations of the GNU license. The subscription system is part of our approach to achieving sustainable open source development via a curated updates system. See the following doc for some background on this:
Hope that helps and thanks to @Noggin for their earlier and far more consise answer. Posting what I’ve typed already as has some additional likes that may be helpfull.
Thank you both for the confirmation!
It took me a solid 30 minutes to figure out how to get that darn ISO copied off the OS drive. But I got the ISO DD imaged on a USB stick now and installed rockstor fresh. It took longer to get the ISO built than to get rockstor where i needed it!
No more issues with the installation kernel not supporting my intel dn2800mt IGP! (I think it was Imagination Technology based) Which is what I have been lurking around waiting for since the base rework was announced. Will definetly make sure the stable subscription is up to date as soon as my data finishes copying back!
If I find any bugs I will report them. Though as a simple file server, on a 1050VA UPS. I go months without hassle. Which just how I like it. Thanks again for the great work!