[Tutorial][Experimental][Third-party Plugin available]Reducing OMV's disk writes, also to install it on USB flash

I have installed flashmem, and now it runs w/o any issues.

Now I don't recall the exact issue which I was facing previously, as it was a while back, but now it is working fine. Thank you

Hi!
I have two machines right now running OMV. I want to install the plugin on both my machines and could use a little help:

1. BananaPi
I am using OMV 3.0.64 on a BananaPi. The system is on a sd card so I could benefit from this plugin, right?
The problem is that in the /etc/fstab file the system drive isn't listed. I only get the entries for the swap-file the tmpfs and all the USB drives connected.

I did not install OMV directly but rather Bananian first and than OMV 3 on top of it, could this be the reason? Can I add the entry manually?

2. Dell T20
This is a standard direct OMV installation. OMV 3 on a thumb drive. I think the plugin is set up correctly but how can I be sure? Further down this thread I read that I should see which folders are mounted to ram. This is the output for mount:

Zitat von mount

sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=10240k,nr_inodes=1007650,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=1617144k,mode=755)
/dev/sdb1 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids)
tmpfs on /etc/machine-id type tmpfs (ro,relatime,size=1617144k,mode=755)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=22,pgrp=1,timeout=300,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=9841)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sda1 on /media/b2c1180c-a0b4-4b6f-a0a9-0098a98af30c type ext4 (rw,noexec,relatime,data=ordered,jqfmt=vfsv0,usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group)
rpc_pipefs on /run/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw,relatime)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,relatime)

Alles anzeigen

Are all the cgroup entries the folders mounted to ram?

Cheers!

Thanks for the answer! Really didn't knew of the existance of this plugin (and OMV-Extras in general) since yesterday. A hole new world!
The BananaPi (and the RasPi which was replaced by it) are running OMV several years now with the same SD card. I guess I was lucky.
I will have more in depth look into the plugin soon. Now I know what to look for

guys complete newbie here.

just a quick question. this thread is now 19 pages long on tapatalk app and it'll take a long time to backread.

is flashmem plugin available for omv 2.0 omv extras?

i reinstalled my omv 2.0 on my 32 bit cpu because i forgot my root password but i cant find the said plugin anymore and i swear i was able to install it before.

thanks.

Sent from my ALCATEL ONETOUCH Flash Plus using Tapatalk

Is there a way to track what was written to the flash drive? My flash drive suddenly had a write of 400MB written to it out of the blue. OMV 3.0.70 with version 3.4.3 of the plugin, /etc/fstab edited and everything.

Gents,

Having a poke around with this plugin on my replacement OMV build (first time using USB for OS drive), noticed the following:

I get writes to /var/cache/samba/msg and /var/cache/samba/lck at least once per minute, causing my writes to constantly trickle upwards. Having now manually covered this in the folder2ram.conf things are looking good.

Not sure if there's been a change to samba of late causing this behaviour, or perhaps the plugin author doesn't use samba perhaps?

Hopefully can be included in future.

Question: does the folder2ram magic within this plugin capture all the performance monitoring stuff that elsewhere is recommended to disable?

ie. is the only benefit to also disabling it to reduce the additional data that is written back to disk on sync/reboot/shutdown?

Do any of you use the Sonarr plugin? This seems to make regular writes to its db file(s) - is it recommended/possible to relocate these? Thanks.

Zitat von ryecoaaron

I've been averaging 20 - 60 MB per day on my systems. 137 MB is still a lot less than my systems not using the plugin.

What sort of daily writes are you seeing present day?

I ask as I'm looking at, with the plugin, more like 300-400 MB per day (test system, doing nothing more than idling).

At a guess - some daily (or more frequent) scheduled task(s) - as when looking at it every few minutes nothing substantially seems to be writing regularly, certain not that would creep up to as much as I'm seeing.

Following a number of weeks of relative stability (up to a few hundred MBs written daily, mostly as a result of daily OMV CRON jobs to update packages etc) I today noticed the figure was again continually creeping up (server 10's of K at a time, every refresh).

Looks like /var/lib/php5/sessions has become particularly 'chatty' (as-is when ideal and a session string when connected to the GUI).

Zitat von ryecoaaron

The /var/lib/php5 directory is one of the directories that the plugin handles - https://github.com/OpenMediaVa…lt/mkconf/flashmemory#L60

While the above is spot on (according to linked source), looking at my installation (and reinstallation several times) it seems to be attempting to target /var/lib/php/ (without the 5), amongst other errors. Any advice on how to completely purge then reinstall this package and associated components (the errors seem to be within the folder2ram component)? Thanks.

Edit: Seems this is the commit that has dropped the "5" thus causing the problem - https://github.com/OpenMediaVa…4054c5d8d23c6a5dab6c0e14f

Edit 2: seems you've created a separate Branch 3.x, with Master presumably now for 4.x - is the issue within here, the wrong version going to the wrong repository?

Here's my attempt to install showing the above issue(s).

root@machine:~# apt-get install openmediavault-flashmemory
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  folder2ram
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  folder2ram openmediavault-flashmemory
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 27.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 243 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 https://dl.bintray.com/openmediavault-plugin-developers/erasmus/ jessie/main folder2ram all 0.2.6.1 [13.1 kB]
Get:2 https://dl.bintray.com/openmediavault-plugin-developers/erasmus/ jessie/main openmediavault-flashmemory all 4.1 [14.2 kB]
Fetched 27.3 kB in 0s (84.9 kB/s)                
Selecting previously unselected package folder2ram.
(Reading database ... 46695 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../folder2ram_0.2.6.1_all.deb ...
Unpacking folder2ram (0.2.6.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package openmediavault-flashmemory.
Preparing to unpack .../openmediavault-flashmemory_4.1_all.deb ...
Unpacking openmediavault-flashmemory (4.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.0.2-5) ...
Processing triggers for openmediavault (3.0.88) ...
Restarting engine daemon ...
Setting up folder2ram (0.2.6.1) ...
Setting up openmediavault-flashmemory (4.1) ...


Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/basic.target.wants/folder2ram_startup.service to /lib/systemd/system/folder2ram_startup.service.
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/shutdown.target.wants/folder2ram_shutdown.service to /lib/systemd/system/folder2ram_shutdown.service.
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/reboot.target.wants/folder2ram_shutdown.service to /lib/systemd/system/folder2ram_shutdown.service.
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/halt.target.wants/folder2ram_shutdown.service to /lib/systemd/system/folder2ram_shutdown.service.


will now start all mountpoints
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/log: not mounted
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/log: not mounted
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/tmp: not mounted
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/tmp: not mounted
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/lib/openmediavault/rrd: not mounted
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/lib/openmediavault/rrd: not mounted
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/spool: not mounted
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/spool: not mounted
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/lib/rrdcached: not mounted
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/lib/rrdcached: not mounted
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/lib/monit: not mounted
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/lib/monit: not mounted
stat: cannot stat ‘/var/lib/php’: No such file or directory
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/lib/php: mountpoint not found
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/lib/php: not mounted
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/lib/netatalk/CNID: not mounted
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/lib/netatalk/CNID: not mounted
chmod: missing operand
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.
chown: missing operand
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
umount: /var/cache/samba: not mounted
umount: /var/folder2ram/var/cache/samba: not mounted
Processing triggers for openmediavault (3.0.88) ...
Updating locale files ...
Updating file permissions ...
Purging internal cache ...
Restarting engine daemon ...
root@machine:~#

Seems the issue is introduced in the latest openmediavault-flashmemory plugin update; I have an identically configured NAS as a cold spare (gets turned on around once a month to be kept up-to-date etc), have just fired this up and confirmed: a) openmediavault-flashmemory config DID contain the /var/lib/php5 as indicated, b) when applying the openmediavault-flashmemory update (via the GUI) I got the same errors and a config now without the /var/lib/php5 folder included.

Separately, one thing I've noticed across all systems: seems any manual changes to the folder2ram.config rile (eg. I've manually added back in the /var/lib/php5 folder for now) requires TWO reboots to take effect.. is this expected?

Finally, again separately, I also notice when upgrading to the most recent openmediavault-flashmemory plugin - which now doesn't have an enable option - within the GUI the enable switch is still there (misleadingly set to disabled, and errors when you try to toggle it).

3.5 gives me this error:

Error
The method 'setSettings' does not exist for the RPC service 'Flashmemory'.
Error #0:
exception 'OMV\Rpc\Exception' with message 'The method 'setSettings' does not exist for the RPC service 'Flashmemory'.' in /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/rpc.inc:91
Stack trace:
#0 /usr/sbin/omv-engined(536): OMV\Rpc\Rpc::call('Flashmemory', 'setSettings', Array, Array, 1)
#1 {main}