Installer features request

Hi, I'm using OMV 5 on two machines, 1. home server (first machine with OMV configured by me) 2. server in my work place. In both instances Installer had one or 2 shortcomings that I was force to workaround, I would like to see them officially addressed In future Installers (maybe only in OMV 6).

First to be clear, I'm not complaining or demand anything

1. OMV installer has no partition tool during installation process, I was modifying iso to enable this, it would be nice if there was an option during installation (or an option on GRUB level) to choose automatic partitioning or manual one. On both machines (home and work) I needed this.

2. (work machine only, HP Proliant server) OMV has no commercial/close source network drivers in iso, so when machine requires some of them you cant install (OMV has net installer only?), in my case network cards was showing fine but they didn't work (did not talk witch DHCP or anything in network), if I'm correct there was no info that closed source drivers might be required, after running full Debian DVD ISO I saw warning about closed source drivers, my workaround was to copy closed source drivers into OMV installer ISO and then I got a warning that this machine may require this driver and do I want to enable them. I think they are not loaded by default, only if user accept them so I think they should be present in ISO, if I'm correct they are not very large.

Zitat von votdev

Please tell us the network manufacturer and typo to check which package is missing.

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 20)

03:00.1 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 20)

04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 20)

04:00.1 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 20)

Kernel driver in use: bnx2

Kernel modules: bnx2

This is from second server (I think it is identical to that I was Installing OMV in first place), we are running on different server now because two days ago primary server died (all data was corrupted, not sure why, maybe raid controller failure).

I'm not sure if Debian net install had correct drivers, but full DVD did (I think, I was installing it few months ago so a may not remember it right :().

Zitat von votdev

This is done by intention to simplify the installation for novice users. Users that need more control should use the Debian Netinst ISO and manually install OMV. Please see https://openmediavault.readthe…stallation/on_debian.html for more information.

I was aware of that but I think I'm stil a novice and I needed that functionality

That why I also pointed that enabling partitioning could be an option on grub level, for example additional item on list "Normal Install + manual partitioning". This will not make it less novice friendly but also allow a little more experienced users to use this image more often.

Zitat von Zoki

Install OMV onto an USB stick and use both disks a data disks. Doing what you want to do is not enabled by intention.

My case was a little bit different, I'm using 128GB NVME drive but I wanted to have separate partition for OMV, Docker Image/Container, and for Docker containers data/configurations (call it service data drive).

Why I did that this way is simple:
- OMV should be backed up from time to time (to not loos current configuration) and there is no reason to do it with large docker images (they can be larger then OMV by itself)
- Docker container data must be backed up to not loose important data from services (Medusa, NodeRED, MySQL etc.), it should be backed up more frequently

Of course there are more advantages to split docker from OMV by using partitions, but here is just an example.

BTW Some time ago I moved Docker Image/container partition to some old and dying NVME drive (second one in this server), so to not waste cycles from my main drive (good one)

As side note I'm not a fan of using usb flash drives as system drives, I know what benefits are but still don't like it.

Zitat von Zoki

Do whatever you like

That exactly what I'm doing

Zitat von Zoki

but the more you put onto a drve, the more trouble yuo will have to repair.

In general yes, I agree but OS is doing almost nothing in case of writing to drive (that is why USB drives can be used as OS disks) so If my drive die it will be services running on docker fault which is 90% why this server is running in first place, if I will be forced to recovery this data, I can recovery OS partition in same time, it will add 1-2minuts more time to recovery.

But still this is offtopic.

Zitat von gderf

I was a bit leery going with USB for the OS of this too. And I still have a bunch of 16GB SATA SSDs that I used to use for this lying around, just in case. But after several years on the same high quality USB stick without any problems, I can say I have full confidence in the practice.

Few years back I was running FreeNAS, two USB drives died (about after 1 year of working each), but back then I was using old laptop as an server.

I don't like USB drive sticking out of my server, all the time, I don't like that someone walking near my server with fast swing of hand can take my OS drive (+passwords on it). And how many professional servers are running from USB drive. I don't like it, I understand why people like it, I did like it when I was running on laptop, now when I have planty SATA an M2 slots in my server I want to use that.

Additionally SSD (especially NVME) is much faster than USB flash drive, updates or any other operation I'm doing on that server is instantaneous.

And this is still offtopic

Regardless, I'm happy user of OMV, its great, I just reported that in two use cases that I think are valid I had to workaround and it would be great If OMV6 supported them without any workarounds. They don't require to rewrite OMV or change mindset to something completely different.

Zitat von macom

Did you (or FreeNAS) was using something like folder2ram or decrease the writes to the USB drive?

Not sure, this was probably 10 years ago . I was even bigger beginner then Im now.

I know that OMV can work from USB. USB Drives are better now and OS can be gentle for them to (if configured correctly)

Zitat von KM0201

You do realize they sell cables you can use to plug into a motherboard header. This will allow you to plug your flash drive directly to the motherboard and leave it inside the chassis..

USB-c

https://www.amazon.com/Cablecc…+cable%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-14

USB 3.0

https://www.amazon.com/Ports-F…r+cable%2Caps%2C94&sr=8-5

USB 2.0

https://www.amazon.com/Duttek-…+cable%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-4

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Yes, but why do that if I have perfectly fine M2 slot on MB (x2 to be precise), and also I can use cheap PCIE to M2/NVME if I want more slots.

I could go with USB drive if I was somehow constrained by SATA or M2 connectors in my server but why not using them if they are already there.

M2 is not good for large capacity (at least in reasonable price) so I can't use it for Media storage, so putting OS drive there doesn't limit my total Media capacity.

Additionally I can (and maybe I will) put single NVME with single partition (OS) in one M2 slot and other stuff (docker) in second slot.

I'm during major changes In filesystem in my server (among others going for BTRFS instead of EXT4). This changes are triggered by hardware RAID5 corruption in company that I'm working for (also OMV server, but backups saved a day :)), this gave me good experience because before it was only "book learning". So now I'm testing/upgrading my recovery scenarios (both home and work), to make them better.

Zitat von Soma

Just a remark:

If you go with BTRFS, don't do a RAID5 with it.

There are still major flaws with that type of RAID:

Manpage of MKFS\&.BTRFS (linuxreviews.org)

RAID56 - btrfs Wiki (kernel.org)

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Thank you, I'm already aware of BTRFS limitation so I'm not going for any RAID configuration with it.

On data volumes I'm using mergerfs+snapraid and I love it (it's better than any other raid/fs raid in many regards, especially for home lab, at least for me).

I did some testing and probably will go with BTRFS metadata dup for OS drive and same for docker data drive or metadata and data dup, this drives have no raid/snapraid now (just backups), I'm especially into filesystem corruption detection that EXT4 does't provide (self healingin dup mode is just cherry on top).

Zitat von KM0201

The key thing (at least IMO).. is insulating the OS from the data.

Im doing it partially, Media drives (~6TB HDDs) are separate, docker data (configs, databases etc.) are on same drive with OS but separate partition, regularly backed up, if drive fail I just recovery from backups 2 instead of 1 partition (for me it doesn't matter). Losing data between backup and drive dying on this partition is not a problem for me