After three tries I think I have managed to install and get OMV up and running.
I know I am still missing some steps but there is a slight problem.
My setup is thas follows:
4 3TB hdd formatted as ext4 and joined together as a unionfilesystem pool. Then in the pool, I have folders cretaed for Music, Videos, Pictures, Documents etc.
Then I have 2 usb 2TB hdd that contain all my important folders but the problem is that some of the folders in the structure are empty but they are not the folders at the top level. I don't really care about these empty folders but I have not been able to copy these important folders to the central pool using rsync because it always fails. (I assume it is the empty folders it was meeting deep in the layers)
I have tried to not include these two usb hdd as pool but I could not get any system I have in OMV to transfer the files. The only option I have is to attach the usb hdd to my server and then copy from my server using ftp to the pool.
It takes a long time and I did not think of it this time I am ashamed to say.
So in frustration, I attached the usb hdd to the pool and in snapraid. Then I ran sync.
So that I don't make a mess again and have to reinstall, I am asking a very simple question. Two or three or as many as needed actually
No 1:
First is that the pool configuration has disappeared from my unionfilesystem page on OMV. is that normal?
(see attachment)
No 2:
Secondly, In order for the system to recognise the photos, music etc, (seeing as they are now part of the pool) what should I do next?
If I run the snapraid pool command, will it automatically populate the pool folders (I can hear a lot of you falling of your chairs laughing) but I really do not want to mess this installation up as I think I have done it nearly right so far.
That is really my priority problem now. Should I shut the system down, eject the usb hdd, attach it to my spare laptop and copy to the pool/Multimedia folders? or should I install the LVM/LDAP plugins and hope they provide me with a solution?
No 3:
My third problem is just an observation that is making the system not work. I don't see the system users anywhere and as a result, I can't share the shared folders with them. As a consequence, although in my windows server I see under the network folder the OMV folder and under it the music, pictures and etc folders, I can't copy into them even though I enabled guest and anybody can read and write permissions. What am I doing wrong please?
It is really frustrating but I think that the solution is probably a missed step but I have enabled smb/cifs so technically anybody should be able to populate these pooled folders but nobody can.
So before I do install no 4, please help.
thank you for your time.
I am getting a fourth problem. I cannot enable any new plugin if I allocate their data directory to the pool. I get a no permission to write error. I have checked and reset folder permissions and still the problem recur. I do not think it is sensible to allocate data directories to individual hdd when they are part of the pool but something is going on and I cant seem to fathom it out.
I will really appreciate some assistance please. many thanks. sean
I rebooted the installation and managed to update the plugins. It seems that the system somehow gets "stuck" and rejects updates to the pooled folders so the only way out is to reboot. a very windows solution no?
i know I am asking basic questions but is that not how people learn? So please help. I still have another JBod of 4hdds that i want to pool and I am not sure you can or should create 2 pools. I will really appreciate some assistance especially as i have taken the step of removing the usb hdd and am now copying the files via ftp (and it is gumming up my server - slowing it down so badly I can barely use it to update this message - now I remember why i was reluctant to adopt this approach. ftp seems to tie up everything memory and hardware - sheesh)
if someone can just hep with q 1 - where did my pool configuration go and how can i get it back - pretty please!!! (I am getting desperate - a fourth installation will glue up another week and I still have docs to prepare for the ex)
So anybody? help?