File server and add and manage disks

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#1

NethServer Version: 7.3.1611 / Shared Folders

Hey, guys!

I’m planning to deploy Nethserver 7.3 to be a file server and AD. This office is small of architecture with about 20 users working on CAD projects.
The server is a Dell T330 with a RAID-1 of 600GB SAS-15k and another RAID-1 with SATA disk from 2TB for archiving.
I was planning to use only CentOS 7 with SAMBA4 but when I found the Nethserver I was very surprised by so many excellent features. I loved the “ad” being separated into a container with its own IP address.

My main doubts:

  1. Is there a tool to add discs? I installed Nethserver on 15k SAS disks, but I can not add 2TB discs. I found only the System Storage Manager (SSM) solution. Is this the way?

  2. as defines on which disk or folder I will share the files. In my case, I need to enable two shares: a folder on the fast disk and another share on the slow disk. Can I edit the SMB. conf files?

Sorry for my English, I’m using online translation tool.
Thanks for the attention!

#2

Hi @Paulo_Barbosa,

Welcome to NethServer! Its a great distro to use for a small to medium sides office to use.

If you are using hardware to define the RAID, then all you would need to do is add the hard disk, add it to the RAID set and the OS should (in theory) see the extra space. This route may require downtime while you add the disk to the RAID volume. Replacing disks in the RAID volume won’t require downtime if the RAID is configured correctly.
Hardware RAID will take some of the workload away from the CPU and give the server itself more power to work on other tasks.

If you are using software RAID, you can use SSM, please do let me know how to get SSM installed, haven’t figured that out myself yet. There are other tools to manage the LVM.

Instead of adding the slower SATA disks to the SAS LVM, one option would be to create a second LVM for the SATA disks and you can then mount that LVM volume onto a predefined folder, eg. mount it to /media/2TbLVM/.
This way, you can still retain the speed of the SAS LVM and also get the additional space that the SATA disks will provide. There is no point in paying extra for the speed of the SAS disks and not being able to use the full speed or functionality they provide.
This option would also provide a solution to your second question you raised regarding the shares.

Regarding editing the smb.conf files, I would not recommend editing it. If there is an exceptionally strong business case to make any changes, use the e-smith templates and be very very careful with the changes you make as it may break the Shared Folders functionality.

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#3

Hello James Nesbitt, thanks for the quick reply.
I will proceed this way according to your suggestion. And any other doubts, return here.

#4

I was able to successfully create a new LVM pool for the second 2TB RAID1 using ssm pointing to /media/2TbLVM/
Now, how do I create a folder share in /media/2TbLVM/FilesOld through Nethserver web?
I can’t edit smb.conf because it overwrites, correct?
I also want to create a second share in /home/01-files. Where do I edit these shares?
I have already joined a Windows station in the domain and utilized rsat successfully.

#5

Well done on getting this far with it @Paulo_Barbosa!

Correct regarding editing the smb.conf file.

And you are correct regarding using the web interface to create the shares. What you need to do is the following:

  1. Create all of the Shared Folders as you normally would in the NethServer web administration with all of the desired permissions. You could call the Share Name something like FilesOld.

  2. create any folders you want on the the 2nd LVM, eg. /media/2TbLVM/FilesOld.

  3. Mount /media/2TbLVM/FilesOld onto /var/lib/nethserver/ibay/FilesOld.

  4. Go back into the Nethserver Web Administration and edit the share called FilesOld and click on the Reset Permissions button on the ACL tab. This will help to ensure that the file and folder permissions are set correctly on the mounted folder.

  5. Test and confirm that you can save and read folders in the FilesOld share.

  6. Final step is to update the /etc/fstab file to automatically mount /media/2TbLVM/FilesOld onto /var/lib/nethserver/ibay/FilesOld for you so that it will survive a server shutdown or restart.

For the /home/01-files share, you could do something similar to the FilesOld share, except check the permissions, if its a Home folder the permission sets may conflict.

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#6

Hello to all!
I wanted to put shares and nextcloud data onto separate partitions and I think I made it :slight_smile:
It seems to work correctly.
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root / xfs defaults 0 0
UUID=cb52a99f-e8c4-4cdf-82a0-b5b7b7b15374 /boot xfs defaults 0 0
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_swap swap swap defaults 0 0
/var/lib/nethserver/home /home none defaults,bind 0 0
/dev/vdb1 /var/lib/nethserver/ibay ext4 defaults 0 0
/dev/vdd1 /var/lib/nethserver/nextcloud ext4 defaults 0 0

But I do not see the usage of these partitions in gui ? … in "dashboard I can see only root part usage

Thank you in advance and
BR
Tonci

#7

You’re right, dashboard disk usage was implemented only for root partition.
Alternatively, you can see the usage from command line (e.g. df -h), or by installing nethserver-glances or nethserver-cockpit and accessing its Storage section, but bear in mind the latter is a preview for testing purposes.

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