Shared folder problem - volumes not available for creation

  • I've just installed OMV (0.4.10) successfully with 4x2TB RAID5 and LVM. After creating three logical volumes and adding file systems (ext4) I was able to successfully create shared folders. I then rebooted, everything was fine, mounted successfully, shared folders are available across the network (NFS & CIFS). HOWEVER, I am unable to create any additional shared folders. The dropdown for 'Volume' on the shared folder creation dialogue box is not populated. It briefly says 'loading' but remains empty so obviously I am unable to create new shared folders (and obviously it worked prior to the reboot). I'm new to OMV (not to Linux) but I'm not sure where to look for the problem. I can't see anything in the logs. I have recreated the problem in a Virtualbox install too with a similar setup (using much smaller disks for the RAID5 but otherwise nearly identical).


    Any help appreciated

  • The hardware is an HP Proliant N40L, 8GB RAM, sata 250GB system drive (the one that came with it), 4x2TB Seagate sata drives in RAID5. Installed OMV on the system disk, updated the system, added all the admin stuff (mail, network etc). Created a RAID5 (5.46TB) and installed the LVM2 plugin. LVM is one physical volume, there is one volume group, 3 logical volumes (150GB, 3.69TB, 1.62TB). File systems are ext4 & mounted OK. I then created one shared folder for each logical volume (two using the root of each volume, the third as 'home' for user files). Setup NFS, SMB/CIFS & Rsync to use the shared folders. At this point I rebooted because I had to put the case back on the box and plug it into a UPS. Once rebooted I went to create another shared folder and found the error above, ie no volumes were showing up. I then deleted everything except the RAID5 and recreated it again but I HAVEN'T REBOOTED SINCE...


    The Virtualbox installation was identical (built on Arch Linux), except I used 5 8GB virtual sata drives on one controller for the system & RAID5 disks, allocated 2GB RAM, bridged network. Exactly the same thing happened on reboot - no volumes available in the dropdown box.


    Although I'm familiar with Linux I haven't used LVM before. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong there, but it seems odd that the volumes were available for creating shared folders OK before the reboot and not after

  • Hmmm, I just deleted all the LVM stuff from the Virtualbox installation & made a single filesystem on the RAID and the shared folder creation works as expected after a reboot. I wonder if I need the LVM after all... I used it because it was there and seemed to have advantages, but perhaps not for the purposes of this box

  • You know I just look at this and ask myself, why? What is the point of the LVM over the RAID 5? Why are you creating 3 logical volume's? Can you give me a clue as to what your reasoning is? I wouldn't use the LVM in raid. Just create the filesystem as you have done now. You can use it and there are some reasons. But I'm not tracking what you were trying to accomplish with this.

  • The best use for lvm is you have a bunch of disks of varying sizes and want to create one big disk, logical volume. But it has risks. If one disk fails you'll lose all your data. If you have something you are trying to accomplish please share your ideas and perhaps someone can help you.

  • I am still using LVM on top of RAID5 for one reasone alone. I could manage whatever will happen in the future more easyly. E.g. if I want to migrate everything to larger disks (exchanging my current 2 GB disks with 8 GB in future (if they will get available :) ). In that case I simply pull one disk of my raid 5, setup a second physical disk in the VG and then migrate the volume over to that VG. Of cause it is then unmirrored and on a single disk. After that I pull the 3 remaining disks create a new Raid5 without parity (missing disk) and put that new volume again into my vg. Then migrating it back to the raid volume. The last step will be to remove the single physical disk and add it as parity to my new raid array.


    All this can be done online without copying over any data. It can be done with raid5 also by pulling one disk at a time and exchanging with the larger disks, then followed by mdadm -grow ... but I like to have it flexible.


    In the end both works, and as long as my Gbit it the bottleneck in all that scenario, I am very happy :)

    Everything is possible, sometimes it requires Google to find out how.

  • SerErris, that is an interesting point. Do you have a single lv? Maybe the multiple lvs I had screwed things up. Anyway, I'm in production now with the filesystem on the RAID and everything is working as expected. OMV fits my needs exactly, so I clicked on the donate button. Kudos

  • Another note on LVM. I have used a multiple drive LVM group. It was easy to deactivate/exort. Then I moved all drives to a new system and imported. Worked really well. I do have positive opinions of LVM in general.

  • I have a single lv for now. I do not see any benefit in my special environment to have multiple LVs as this only would impact head movement on my disks. If you want to separate something I recommend directories with quotas ...


    Unfortunately I now need to jump to my flight but will return on Monday and can then check again in a vmware environment ...

    Everything is possible, sometimes it requires Google to find out how.

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