Undelete on OMV7

You had to enable the recycle bin on SMB shares.

Quote from amikot

However I don't know how it works - how it determine what is difference between corrupted file and when it was changed for purpose.
I see it as something that exists, but I don't feel it is really reliable - mainly because I don't see it working.
There is no proper monitoring software - no gui, no webui, no even tool that would display something human readable information.

Problem with programs that have no interface is that you have to type everything manually.
I guessing that snapraid undelete feature will expect me to specify exact name of the file to undelete. I guess it won't display any selector where I could be able to choose which file to undelete?

Isn't the snapraid plugin a web interface? What would "display" is the plugin missing? The plugin has a status button to show you info just like regular raid.

Have you read the snapraid manual to understand how it works? Calling it unreliable because you don't know how snapraid works seems a bit strange.

If you read the manual, you will find the "Undeleting" section that uses the "fix" command. The plugin has a Undelete menu option that will restore all deleted files. If you only want to undelete select files, you will have to do that from the command line but the manual makes it pretty easy.

Quote from amikot

I understand it is not automatic - so the actions need to be triggered. So it differs from normal raid - in normal raid you don't need to do anything -

Actually, that is wrong. If you delete a file on regular raid, it is gone. That is why snapraid is a hybrid of raid and backup.

Quote from amikot

In snapraid you go to plugins settings and you don't know what is what - options like: Spin for example?

I named them after what is described in the manual. Spin just spins the drives up or down. Look at 5.3 and 5.4 in the manual.

Quote from amikot

This plugin looks like someone made it just for himsef - to automate some actions that are obvious for him - no desctiptoons no help texts etc.

Odd since I wrote it and don't use snapraid. I did my best to help people but obviously I did a shitty job. Feel free to contribute to make it better.

The plugin should not be the source of documentation. Do you see tons of documentation in any other plugin? People who are good at writing docs for noobs (I am not)( should write a plugin specific guide (there is one in the works - https://wiki.omv-extras.org/do…id=docs_in_draft:snapraid) but the snapraid manual does a pretty good job..

Quote from amikot

I understand - it is right for programmer to make software as he want's but why I should pretend it is great and intuitive and simple.
It's not.

That was my goal. To make the plugin as hard to use as possible.... I recommend not using any of the omv-extras plugins then

Quote from amikot

For example - I've found option to undelete - okay - maybe I Will be able to see the files and undelete what I Want.

I don't have a good way to do that in a plugin. There is no gui component to enumerate files.

Quote from amikot

Instead of that - some scanning started. Great ! no even asking if I want to proceed. No option to abort - who knows what will happen now ? I don't know

People complain when there are too many confirmations and not enough. Can't win.

Quote from amikot

Okay - I know what snapraid undelete has done - big mess, and overwritten blocks that I could restore from.

Why there is no any confirmation needed before it starts messing the drive?

Would you have not click the confirmation too? I don't see how that would've helped. How did it make a mess? It is literally running snapraid fix -m.

Quote from amikot

I don't say you have done shitty job - you have done job from perspective of your knowledge not thinking to make it obvious for someone who is just simple user.
This is how people make software in most cases - they think about functions, but not about making software intuitive.

You basically did. You may think I didn't try to make it usable to a simple user but I am limited by how snapraid works and how the OMV framework is. snapraid is not simple. I cannot make it simple. Could the plugin be a little simpler? Maybe but you forget that not every OMV plugin has to be simple. Advanced users want flexiblity and with flexibility comes an increase in complexity.

Quote from amikot

Nice you telling me do do plugins myself, but as I remember OMV uses some asp or some framework I don't know. I program in pure php or sometimes java - which is not very useful for OMV

I didn't tell you to do plugins yourself. I said contribute. Big difference. 40% of the snapraid plugin is php. If you are php programmer, you should at least tell me how to make the plugin better rather than just saying it is unintuitive and works badly.

Quote from amikot

However, I make software for people who sometimes don't know too much about computers, and I have to think the way they think. That's why when I see programs that expect everyone read manuals - I don't really like them - I'm trying to make my programs simple and would like others to do the same.

Many OMV users know nothing about the Linux command line. With plugins, they can just click buttons. That is pretty good from my point of view. Some of the plugins have a ton of automation behind the button. You may not think I am making things simple but that is wrong. Maybe it isn't simple enough but some things will always be complicated.

The UX of the snapraid plugin would be HORRIBLE if it had enough information that you didn't need to read the manual. Snapraid is complicated and requires reading the manual. I would not use snapraid if you don't like manuals.

Quote from amikot

If I would have to read and remember manual of every software I use, I would have no time to read anything else - especially that I have rather weak memory, and probably after few next manuals I would forget the previous.

I write automation for a living and have to figure out how things work. I read lots of manuals. If I had to rely on other people to help me with everything, I would be out of a job.

Quote from amikot

I don't say you're making your plugin difficult for purpose - maybe you just can't imagine how it is to not know things that are obvious for you.

Since I don't use snapraid, I wrote the plugin by reading the manual. Because of that, I don't have extensive experience on how to make day to day functions easier. I rely on people to help with that. Since no one does, you get what you get.

Quote from amikot

No I was not asked to confirm if I want to restore found files - Just clicked undelete in your plugin, and it started restoring.

I can't make the plugin commands interactive. It is not possible with the OMV framework (or many web interfaces). You will have to use the command line if you want that. Nothing I can do about that.

Quote from amikot

2. I don't know if OMV web framework let you to open prompt window before you open command window, but if it's possible, you could ask user to pass filter, than you could run snapraid fix -m -f PATTERN which would undelete only those files that are matching the pattern (pattern can contain wildcards * and ?) - I would make it as separate option in the menu " undelete files".

Yep, I would've added that if I could. I even added the code a long time ago hoping I could figure out a way to do it - https://github.com/OpenMediaVa…ned/rpc/snapraid.inc#L471. I mean technically it can be done but I couldn't show any output.

Quote from amikot

Going back to the problem with snapraid itself (not the plugin) - I've just looked into the manual and it is very unclear in terms of maintenance.
There is diff command which makes the list of files with modified timestamps, and there is sync which makes actual snapshot/backup to parity disc.
There is also scrub command which fixes hidden corruption.

I couldn't find any information what should be procedure. You have made "scheduled diff" menu - which runs diff command, but diff is only to create list of modified files - that states manual - it's not syncing anything yet, so it looks sync should be executed afterwards. So I guess this is another modification I could suggest - to run "scheduled sync" just after "scheduled diff" (if it doesn't work that way already).

There is also question of scrubbing. Manual says it should be proceeded on synced drives only.
But won't syncing inject hidden corruption into parity data making whole scrub pointless? Or maybe sync is only syncing those files that were found with diff ? However - if manual says to scrub only if drives are synced, shouldn't "scheduled scrub" sync drives before scrubbing?

The scheduled diff command is actually running a script (not written by me) that does more than just diff. https://github.com/OpenMediaVa…sr/sbin/omv-snapraid-diff

Quote from amikot

And once again - I really don't say your plugin is shitty - it is rather snapraid which runs commands weird way. For example if you use fsck - you have to use -y parameter otherwise you will be prompted for confirmation on every occasion, but in snapraid everything is assumed user really perfectly know what he is doing

To do that, I would have to double the number of commands in the plugin. But that would also assume that snapraid has a test/pretend/no action flag for the commands. snapraid fix for example has no flag to that would cause it to show you want it would do. In fact, I don't think any of them do. You continue to blame the plugin and want it to work like other things in Linux do. But I can't do that if snapraid doesn't allow me to. In the 11+ years the plugin has existed, you have had far more issues with it than anyone else.

Quote from amikot

this is really danger because I don't think there is anyone who is that confident with handling RAID arrays - maybe people in data centers only. Everyone else is looking into forums, manuals for advice and trying - and making mistakes unfortunately.

The real danger is people using raid for backup. raid is meant for availability/redundancy. If a user has backup, running snapraid commands would be far less dangerous.