[BackupPC-users] OT: NAS GUI for native Linux (preferably RHEL)

[Timothy J Massey]

Hello!

I'm in the middle of building a "Super" Backup server. It will do the
following:

Run BackupPC for file-level backups
Provide NFS share(s) for VMware snapshots
Provide CIFS share(s) for Windows snapshots and Clonezilla
Contains a removable SATA tray
Manage all of this from a GUI

I am currently doing each of these features on various different BackupPC
servers already, but in each case it was done manually, by hand, and from
the command line. For this iteration, I would like to wrap a GUI around
it.

In the case of BackupPC, it has a GUI and I will continue to use it.
However, *many* of the functions I would like to have the user perform do
not: NFS shares, CIFS shares, users, network settings, etc. However,
these are *EXACTLY* the standard function that a NAS does, and there are
1E6 of these already built.

So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions? For example, something like the
GUI for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about using them as
the hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow. Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)

I would prefer staying based on a generic Linux install, but I've also
thought about using a NAS-based distro as the base (such as OpenFiler). In
the specific case of OpenFiler, the current version in a bit of a bad
place at the moment. There is much concern that the base OS, which is
based on rPath, will not be available for free users for much longer; in
addition the current beta version (2.99) has some known critical bugs in
iSCSI (which I use), and there have been no updates since April. So, it's
not my favorite base to build on... (Reference:
https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?pid=26228)

And I'd vastly prefer to stay with Linux, which eliminates FreeNAS and
Nexenta.

Many of the Linux-based NAS systems are designed as firmware for dedicated
(and often vastly inadequate) hardware: NSLU2 falls into this camp. I am
not running this on an embedded device: It's a full-featured PC-based
architecture.

I'm also willing to consider generic Linux system management tools such as
webmin, but I'd prefer something more focused on NAS-type functions if I
can get it. It's been years since I've looked at Webmin, but a quick
glance seems to show that it hasn't changed much: it's little more than
textareas with chunks of the configuration files dumped into them. I'm
hoping for something more polished if I can get it.

Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every NAS
I've ever seen. Of course, each of them is specific to their device. I'm
hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?

Thank you very much for your help!

Timothy J. Massey


Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]

[Les Mikesell]

Post by Timothy J Massey
Hello!
I'm in the middle of building a "Super" Backup server. It will do the
Run BackupPC for file-level backups
Provide NFS share(s) for VMware snapshots
Provide CIFS share(s) for Windows snapshots and Clonezilla
Contains a removable SATA tray
Manage all of this from a GUI
I am currently doing each of these features on various different BackupPC
servers already, but in each case it was done manually, by hand, and from
the command line. For this iteration, I would like to wrap a GUI around it.
In the case of BackupPC, it has a GUI and I will continue to use it.
However, *many* of the functions I would like to have the user perform do
not: NFS shares, CIFS shares, users, network settings, etc. However,
these are *EXACTLY* the standard function that a NAS does, and there are
1E6 of these already built.
So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions? For example, something like the GUI
for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about using them as the
hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow. Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)
I would prefer staying based on a generic Linux install, but I've also
thought about using a NAS-based distro as the base (such as OpenFiler). In
the specific case of OpenFiler, the current version in a bit of a bad place
at the moment. There is much concern that the base OS, which is based on
rPath, will not be available for free users for much longer; in addition
the current beta version (2.99) has some known critical bugs in iSCSI
(which I use), and there have been no updates since April. So, it's not my
https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?pid=26228)
And I'd vastly prefer to stay with Linux, which eliminates FreeNAS and
Nexenta.
Many of the Linux-based NAS systems are designed as firmware for dedicated
(and often vastly inadequate) hardware: NSLU2 falls into this camp. I am
not running this on an embedded device: It's a full-featured PC-based
architecture.
I'm also willing to consider generic Linux system management tools such as
webmin, but I'd prefer something more focused on NAS-type functions if I
can get it. It's been years since I've looked at Webmin, but a quick
glance seems to show that it hasn't changed much: it's little more than
textareas with chunks of the configuration files dumped into them. I'm
hoping for something more polished if I can get it.
Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every NAS
I've ever seen. Of course, each of them is specific to their device. I'm
hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.
Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?

The two players in the 'generic server GUI' space are SME server and
ClearOS. Both are sort-of generic Centos under the covers but you barely
see it. SME server has a long history but has slowed down progress in the
last few years. It works by having a web interface build snippets of
config files and perl scripts that are processed with templates to rebuild
the real config files. If you want to make your own changes, you have to
edit the templates, not the normal configs. ClearOS has a much more modern
ajax-y interface but I'm not quite sure what does the real work. The
delay in the CentOS 6.0 release set them back badly so you have to choose
between a beta 6.x version or an outdated 5.x.

Unless you have a lot of users or changing needs, this doesn't really sound
like something that needs a web GUI to manage - or at least not worth
putting up with oddball/non-standard configurations to get. If your
hardware can handle a small amount of overhead and you can manage it from a
windows client, you might consider VMware ESXi (the free version). Then
you can run a full GUI console of any OS remotely - and if you felt like it
you could run one OS for file shares and a different one for backuppc. In
any case, having a VMware setup with some disk space is handy to try out
new things since you can map a downloaded iso image on an nfs share as the
DVD drive and install in a new VM without having to touch any real hardware.

[Timothy J Massey]

Post by Timothy J Massey

Post by Timothy J Massey
Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every

NAS I've ever seen. Of course, each of them is specific to their
device. I'm hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.

Post by Timothy J Massey
Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?

The two players in the 'generic server GUI' space are SME server and
ClearOS. Both are sort-of generic Centos under the covers but you
barely see it. SME server has a long history but has slowed down
progress in the last few years. It works by having a web interface
build snippets of config files and perl scripts that are processed
with templates to rebuild the real config files. If you want to
make your own changes, you have to edit the templates, not the
normal configs. ClearOS has a much more modern ajax-y interface but
I'm not quite sure what does the real work. The delay in the
CentOS 6.0 release set them back badly so you have to choose between
a beta 6.x version or an outdated 5.x.

I was vaguely aware of these, but neither came to mind. I will check them
out. Thank you!

Post by Timothy J Massey
Unless you have a lot of users or changing needs, this doesn't
really sound like something that needs a web GUI to manage - or at
least not worth putting up with oddball/non-standard configurations
to get.

Yes, it does. *You* try selling tools without a GUI in 2012.

This is not for personal consumption. Like I said, I already have servers
doing every one of these functions. I now want to make them available to
the office manager. He needs a GUI to even consider it, even if he'll
never change a single one of these features...

Post by Timothy J Massey
If your hardware can handle a small amount of overhead
and you can manage it from a windows client, you might consider
VMware ESXi (the free version). Then you can run a full GUI console
of any OS remotely

That doesn't add a thing for this solution. It's not the "remotely" part
that I need, it's the GUI part they need. And ESXi doesn't help a *BIT*
in configuring an NFS share... (Nor does ESXi give me any advantage in
managing storage, which is all that this solution really is. In fact,
there's a reason you really want to run a VM solution on *top* of a really
good quality SAN... :) )

Tim Massey


Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]

[Timothy J Massey]

Post by Timothy J Massey

Post by Timothy J Massey
If your hardware can handle a small amount of overhead
and you can manage it from a windows client, you might consider
VMware ESXi (the free version). Then you can run a full GUI console
of any OS remotely

That doesn't add a thing for this solution. It's not the "remotely"
part that I need, it's the GUI part they need. And ESXi doesn't
help a *BIT* in configuring an NFS share... (Nor does ESXi give me
any advantage in managing storage, which is all that this solution
really is. In fact, there's a reason you really want to run a VM
solution on *top* of a really good quality SAN... :) )

A further point on this, seeing as "Use virtualization!" was a bit of a
common reply:

Virtualization puts *really* heavy demands on the storage layer. ESXi by
itself (free or otherwise) provides *very* little of what you want in that
area. It' has *basic* tools, but it really expects these things to be
taken care of by the storage layer *below* it. (Remember who owns VMware?
A little company called EMC, who might be able to sell you some big iron
to help solve those issues...)

And if you do try to use ESXi to do these things, you're pretty much
locked into VMFS, unless you're on a very short list of high-end storage
hardware (i.e. NetApp Filer). In a disaster situation, do you *really*
want all of your backup data locked up in proprietary VMFS-formatted
devices? I don't.

So, no: I do not want virtualization between my filesystem and my
hardware in this case. On a file server: yes, yes, yes. On a backup
server: no.

Tim Massey


Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]

[Les Mikesell]

Post by Timothy J Massey

Post by Timothy J Massey

Post by Timothy J Massey
If your hardware can handle a small amount of overhead
and you can manage it from a windows client, you might consider
VMware ESXi (the free version). Then you can run a full GUI console
of any OS remotely

That doesn't add a thing for this solution. It's not the "remotely"
part that I need, it's the GUI part they need.

There are GUI's, remote GUI's and web GUI's. VMware gives you a remote
console where you might run a GNOME desktop, etc. Depending on the
circumstances, that might be a usable GUI.

And ESXi doesn't

Post by Timothy J Massey

Post by Timothy J Massey
help a *BIT* in configuring an NFS share...

Right, but it barely hurts.

Post by Timothy J Massey
(Nor does ESXi give me

Post by Timothy J Massey
any advantage in managing storage, which is all that this solution
really is. In fact, there's a reason you really want to run a VM
solution on *top* of a really good quality SAN... :) )

A further point on this, seeing as "Use virtualization!" was a bit of a
Virtualization puts *really* heavy demands on the storage layer. ESXi by
itself (free or otherwise) provides *very* little of what you want in that
area. It' has *basic* tools, but it really expects these things to be
taken care of by the storage layer *below* it. (Remember who owns VMware?
A little company called EMC, who might be able to sell you some big iron
to help solve those issues...)
And if you do try to use ESXi to do these things, you're pretty much
locked into VMFS, unless you're on a very short list of high-end storage
hardware (i.e. NetApp Filer). In a disaster situation, do you *really*
want all of your backup data locked up in proprietary VMFS-formatted
devices? I don't.

Don't think it really matters, but I like the remote access part - it's
like getting a bunch of free remote KVMs and the ability to map NFS-shared
iso images as DVDs. I just set up a couple of systems in remote offices
where the base system is ESXi and the hardware is 3 raid1 sets. A Centos
VM running backuppc owns one whole raid set for the backuppc archive (about
2 TB) plus part of one of the others for an nfs/samba share. Part of the
other space is for backup images of live machines that VMware's converter
tool can write directly from running machines (and works amazingly
well...). I haven't had much of this sort of trouble yet, but I think I
can swap any single disk out of that chassis, spin it up in another box
running ESXi and access the data, and at the VM filesystem level I can
remotely connect an ISO image as the CD, tell the VM bios to boot it, and
use any bootable recovery tool. All very handy stuff when the locations
are on opposite sides of the continent. And of course it was trivial to
clone the setup built in my office to the other locations.

Post by Timothy J Massey
So, no: I do not want virtualization between my filesystem and my
hardware in this case. On a file server: yes, yes, yes. On a backup
server: no.

So far it all seems to work great, and sticking a bunch of 2TB drives in a
chassis that was being retired from some other service was a lot cheaper
than setting up a SAN. (2TB was as big as this controller would accept -
on a new box I would have used 3TB drives.)

[Tyler J. Wagner]

Post by Timothy J Massey
So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions? For example, something like the GUI
for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about using them as the
hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow. Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)

Have you tried webmin? It's not specific to this, but it's about as close
to a CLI replacement as a generic Linux server has.

Regards,
Tyler

[Les Mikesell]

Post by Tyler J. Wagner

So, my question:  is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions?  For example, something like the GUI
for an Iomega NAS would be perfect.  (I thought about using them as the
hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow.  Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)

Have you tried webmin? It's not specific to this, but it's about as close
to a CLI replacement as a generic Linux server has.

Webmin doesn't really change the concepts much. You still need to
know all the details about the applications and their config files,
although it can help keep you from making stupid syntax errors. SME
server makes things simpler by combining concepts. For example you
can add a NIC mac address, an IP address, and a hostname in one
place, and it will configure the DCHP server to give out the right IP
to that device and the DNS server to resolve the name. You can
create a web/ftp and file share with one name - and create a group for
users and get both unix permissioning and an email group built.

[Timothy J Massey]

Post by Les Mikesell

Post by Tyler J. Wagner

Post by Timothy J Massey
So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions? For example, something like the GUI
for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about using them as the
hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow. Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)

Have you tried webmin? It's not specific to this, but it's about as close
to a CLI replacement as a generic Linux server has.

Webmin doesn't really change the concepts much. You still need to
know all the details about the applications and their config files,
although it can help keep you from making stupid syntax errors. SME
server makes things simpler by combining concepts. For example you
can add a NIC mac address, an IP address, and a hostname in one
place, and it will configure the DCHP server to give out the right IP
to that device and the DNS server to resolve the name. You can
create a web/ftp and file share with one name - and create a group for
users and get both unix permissioning and an email group built.

Exactly. Webmin is little more than webified configuration files. You
use Firefox instead of ssh, but the process is nearly identical.

For now, Webmin is what I'm using, on top of CentOS 6.2. But if you've
ever used a NAS, you know how *very* far configuring one of those is from
Webmin.

Really, all I want is a standard consumer-level NAS, with two additions:

1) BackupPC
2) A built-in removable SATA tray.

#1 means I can't use the stock firmware as-is, and #2 means I can't use
the stock hardware. So, I get the fun of rebuilding a NAS system just so
I can stick a removable drive in it and run BackupPC on the same box.

In fact, in the past, we simply sold both a BackupPC server *and* an
Iomega NAS to a client. The problem is, they get less space for both
solutions and spend more on the two boxes than if we were to combine them.
So, that's what I'm trying to do...

Tim Massey


Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]

[Michel Jacobs]

go with unraid. It has rsync capabilities , is free (with three disks)
and works like a charm (version 4.7). Based on slackware.
--
website: te paard naar sint Petersburg
<http://tepaardnaarsintpetersburg.nl>

mail: ***@xs4all.nl <mailto://***@xs4all.nl>

skype: michel.jacobs1 <callto://michel.jacobs1>

phone: [phone]

cell: [phone]

facsimile: [phone]

[Timothy J Massey]

Post by Michel Jacobs
go with unraid. It has rsync capabilities , is free (with three
disks) and works like a charm (version 4.7). Based on slackware.

It is an interesting solution. One big problem: I *need* striped arrays.
I will be dealing with single files that could easily approach (and
possibly even exceed) the capacity of a single drive, and I will be
rolling down multiple versions of these files. They need to be in the
same filesystem.

Tim Massey


Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]

[Michel Jacobs]

well, i suppose you looked it up, but me thinks this solution would be
perfect: you have the capacity of two disks of whatever size is
available right now in ONE system. Do you have files that are larger
than 1,5 terabytes?? If that's the case you certainly need striped..
--
website: te paard naar sint Petersburg
<http://tepaardnaarsintpetersburg.nl>

mail: ***@xs4all.nl <mailto://***@xs4all.nl>

skype: michel.jacobs1 <callto://michel.jacobs1>

phone: [phone]

cell: [phone]

facsimile: [phone]

[Tyler J. Wagner]

Exactly. Webmin is little more than webified configuration files. You use
Firefox instead of ssh, but the process is nearly identical.

Fair enough.

For now, Webmin is what I'm using, on top of CentOS 6.2. But if you've
ever used a NAS, you know how *very* far configuring one of those is from
Webmin.
1) BackupPC
2) A built-in removable SATA tray.

So how about FreeNAS with BackupPC installed?

http://harryd71.blogspot.com/search/label/backuppc

Regards,
Tyler

[Timothy J Massey]

Post by Tyler J. Wagner
So how about FreeNAS with BackupPC installed?
http://harryd71.blogspot.com/search/label/backuppc

Honest answer? My prejudice against non-Linux UNIX, especially with
something as important as backup. I don't want to run into subtle issues
that won't show themselves until I really, really need those backups...
(That red text right up near the top of your link? *That* is what I'm
talking about...)

Which is why OpenFiler would be such a natural fit, if the current version
didn't have serious bugs that haven't been fixed since April, and an
upstream base that seems to be going away...

Tim Massey


Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]

[Steve Willoughby]

Honest answer? My prejudice against non-Linux UNIX, especially with
something as important as backup. I don't want to run into subtle issues

Fair enough, as long as you admit it's prejudice on your part. There's
a lot of history of Unix being proven stable in server applications for
a lot longer than Linux has been around. You have to set up and
maintain the systems, though, so go with what you're comfortable with
and know best how to use.

that won't show themselves until I really, really need those backups...
(That red text right up near the top of your link? *That* is what I'm
talking about...)

Yeah, but don't rely on ANY platform to "just work". If you need the
backups, always get in the habit of verifying them on a regular basis.

[h***@gmail.com]

Post by Timothy J Massey

Post by Tyler J. Wagner
So how about FreeNAS with BackupPC installed?
http://harryd71.blogspot.com/search/label/backuppc

Honest answer? My prejudice against non-Linux UNIX, especially with
something as important as backup. I don't want to run into subtle issues
that won't show themselves until I really, really need those backups...
(That red text right up near the top of your link? *That* is what I'm
talking about...)
Which is why OpenFiler would be such a natural fit, if the current version
didn't have serious bugs that haven't been fixed since April, and an
upstream base that seems to be going away...

So it seems there isn't a perfect fit; IMO the closest would be Openfiler -
and if the newest version (which I haven't even looked at) doesn't suit,
the "final legacy" version hasn't IMO had any serious issues, won't be
getting and doesn't need any updating, so the rPath issue doesn't really
matter, it should just remain stable, just toss a BPC running in a VM on
top and you're done.

A more involved alternative would be to "reverse engineer" those components
you want from OF and just create a customized distro based on whatever
you're most comfortable with, e.g. an automated kickstart of CentOS should
serve well, and is a close analogue to the rPath environment anyway.

If the client really needs GUI management of the underlying OS, Ubuntu
might be a better fit, or maybe they deserve a windoze server, can VM a BPC
host on top of that as well.

[h***@gmail.com]

I highly recommend OpenFiler. The code itself is open-source, but t's not
very diligently supported by the community. However I was a total newbie to
the world of Linux and have never needed any - it's been solid as a rock,
and has every possible NAS feature readily available from web-driven GUI,
obviously designed for the high-end corporate sector.

The previous version had an outdated stub of BPC installed, so they used to
work together, but this would now need to be added manually.

I would recommend running BPC in a VM so as to disturb OF's "appliance"
nature as little as possible.

Or in an ideal world, run your Filer standalone and BPC on a dedicated box.
Both projects run well on low-end/older hardware - but note this doesn't
mean I'm advocated consumer-grade hardware for mission-critical tasks. . .

Post by Timothy J Massey
Hello!
I'm in the middle of building a "Super" Backup server. It will do the
Run BackupPC for file-level backups
Provide NFS share(s) for VMware snapshots
Provide CIFS share(s) for Windows snapshots and Clonezilla
Contains a removable SATA tray
Manage all of this from a GUI
I am currently doing each of these features on various different BackupPC
servers already, but in each case it was done manually, by hand, and from
the command line. For this iteration, I would like to wrap a GUI around it.
In the case of BackupPC, it has a GUI and I will continue to use it.
However, *many* of the functions I would like to have the user perform do
not: NFS shares, CIFS shares, users, network settings, etc. However,
these are *EXACTLY* the standard function that a NAS does, and there are
1E6 of these already built.
So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions? For example, something like the GUI
for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about using them as the
hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow. Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)
I would prefer staying based on a generic Linux install, but I've also
thought about using a NAS-based distro as the base (such as OpenFiler). In
the specific case of OpenFiler, the current version in a bit of a bad place
at the moment. There is much concern that the base OS, which is based on
rPath, will not be available for free users for much longer; in addition
the current beta version (2.99) has some known critical bugs in iSCSI
(which I use), and there have been no updates since April. So, it's not my
https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?pid=26228)
And I'd vastly prefer to stay with Linux, which eliminates FreeNAS and
Nexenta.
Many of the Linux-based NAS systems are designed as firmware for dedicated
(and often vastly inadequate) hardware: NSLU2 falls into this camp. I am
not running this on an embedded device: It's a full-featured PC-based
architecture.
I'm also willing to consider generic Linux system management tools such as
webmin, but I'd prefer something more focused on NAS-type functions if I
can get it. It's been years since I've looked at Webmin, but a quick
glance seems to show that it hasn't changed much: it's little more than
textareas with chunks of the configuration files dumped into them. I'm
hoping for something more polished if I can get it.
Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every NAS
I've ever seen. Of course, each of them is specific to their device. I'm
hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.
Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?
Thank you very much for your help!
Timothy J. Massey
*Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.* *
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!**
**http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com*<http://www.outoftheboxsolutions.com/>
*
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]
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[Timothy J Massey]

Post by h***@gmail.com
I highly recommend OpenFiler. The code itself is open-source, but
t's not very diligently supported by the community. However I was a
total newbie to the world of Linux and have never needed any - it's
been solid as a rock, and has every possible NAS feature readily
available from web-driven GUI, obviously designed for the high-end
corporate sector.

It has been a solid performer: I've been using 2.3 for quite a while now.
But there are a *lot* of questions moving forward: enough that I don't
want to base a new solution on top of it.

Both the top-level project (OpenFiler) and the framework it's built on
(rPath) are having visible problems.

Post by h***@gmail.com
I would recommend running BPC in a VM so as to disturb OF's
"appliance" nature as little as possible.

I'm a *huge* fan of VM, but there are times where you don't want the
complexity, and get near-zero benefit from it. This is one of them. Think
"appliance", not "server". This is a device for managing lots of
*storage*. ESXi makes that much harder, not easier.

Tim Massey


Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]

[Chris Parsons]

Id highly recommend Nexenta. It is much more feature complete than
Openfiler and linux. Futher to this, with my experiences, BackupPC
performs much better on Nexenta than it does on linux.

Post by Timothy J Massey
Hello!
I'm in the middle of building a "Super" Backup server. It will do the
Run BackupPC for file-level backups
Provide NFS share(s) for VMware snapshots
Provide CIFS share(s) for Windows snapshots and Clonezilla
Contains a removable SATA tray
Manage all of this from a GUI
I am currently doing each of these features on various different
BackupPC servers already, but in each case it was done manually, by
hand, and from the command line. For this iteration, I would like to
wrap a GUI around it.
In the case of BackupPC, it has a GUI and I will continue to use it.
However, *many* of the functions I would like to have the user
perform do not: NFS shares, CIFS shares, users, network settings,
etc. However, these are *EXACTLY* the standard function that a NAS
does, and there are 1E6 of these already built.
So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on
top of "standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider
others) that will add most of these functions? For example, something
like the GUI for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about
using them as the hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to
them, but there's no built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and
slow. Plus the Linux environment is... minimal.)
I would prefer staying based on a generic Linux install, but I've also
thought about using a NAS-based distro as the base (such as
OpenFiler). In the specific case of OpenFiler, the current version in
a bit of a bad place at the moment. There is much concern that the
base OS, which is based on rPath, will not be available for free users
for much longer; in addition the current beta version (2.99) has some
known critical bugs in iSCSI (which I use), and there have been no
updates since April. So, it's not my favorite base to build on...
(Reference: https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?pid=26228)
And I'd vastly prefer to stay with Linux, which eliminates FreeNAS and
Nexenta.
Many of the Linux-based NAS systems are designed as firmware for
dedicated (and often vastly inadequate) hardware: NSLU2 falls into
this camp. I am not running this on an embedded device: It's a
full-featured PC-based architecture.
I'm also willing to consider generic Linux system management tools
such as webmin, but I'd prefer something more focused on NAS-type
functions if I can get it. It's been years since I've looked at
it's little more than textareas with chunks of the configuration
files dumped into them. I'm hoping for something more polished if I
can get it.
Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every
NAS I've ever seen. Of course, each of them is specific to their
device. I'm hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.
Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?
Thank you very much for your help!
Timothy J. Massey
*Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.* *
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!*_
__http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com_
<http://www.outoftheboxsolutions.com/>_
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write once. Port to many.
Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create
new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the
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Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

[h***@gmail.com]

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Chris Parsons <

Post by Chris Parsons
Id highly recommend Nexenta. It is much more feature complete than
Openfiler and linux. Futher to this, with my experiences, BackupPC performs
much better on Nexenta than it does on linux.
I'm sure it's solid for those with experience in it, and ZFS is great

tech, but since Oracle killed its kernel upstream I personally wouldn't
invest much in Nexenta myself; it hasn't has a new release for 15 months
now.

Of course if OpenIndiana gains traction that's another story, but I tend to
prefer mainstream choices for key infrastructure myself. . .

[Timothy J Massey]

Post by h***@gmail.com
On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Chris Parsons
Id highly recommend Nexenta. It is much more feature complete than
Openfiler and linux. Futher to this, with my experiences, BackupPC
performs much better on Nexenta than it does on linux.
I'm sure it's solid for those with experience in it, and ZFS is
great tech, but since Oracle killed its kernel upstream I personally
wouldn't invest much in Nexenta myself; it hasn't has a new release
for 15 months now.

You got it: it's got all of the problems that I have with OpenFiler but
worse (no recent releases, uncertain future), and add to it the need to
port everything over to it (Solaris != Linux).

And while the tech of ZFS et. al. may be amazing, I do not overly need it
with this solution. I need a way to access lots of raw space remotely.
That's about it. (OK, block-level dedupe would be really nice. But not
enough.)

Post by h***@gmail.com
Of course if OpenIndiana gains traction that's another story, but I
tend to prefer mainstream choices for key infrastructure myself. . .

And given Oracle's current stance in the computer industry ("It's my ball
and I'm taking it home!"), I'm not holding my breath. Any community using
OpenSolaris code will be completely on its own, and will diverge from
Solaris no matter what.

Tim Massey

Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: [phone]