2017

Moving bacula-sd into a FreeBSD jail

In this post: Bacula 7.4 FreeBSD 11.1 py-iocage 0.9.9.2 I recently wrote about Converting a Dell R710 into a ZFS-based FreeBSD 11.1 tape library bacula-sd and then about getting the drives ready. That system, henceforth referred to as the r710 is now ready for the Bacula setup. Last night I created a jail and installed the software I’ll need. Most of this was done via Ansible. I also configured Bacula both on the […]

Moving bacula-sd into a FreeBSD jail Read More »

R710

I’ve been given a Dell PowerEdge 710. I’ve installed two 30GB SSDs, installed FreeBSD 11 on them, and added four 500 GB SSDs. It will become a tape library server, replacing the R610 which will no longer be used. Some of the hardware came from the R610. The zpools: The filesystems: And dmesg:

R710 Read More »

R710 – getting the drives ready

I recently installed 6 SSDs into an R710. In this post, I will describe what I did to the empty SSDs before I started using them. short test I ran a short test on each one of the drives. I already had smartctl. $ sudo smartctl -t short /dev/da0 smartctl 6.6 2017-11-05 r4594 [FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE-p1 amd64] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-17, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org === START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST

R710 – getting the drives ready Read More »

Converting a Dell R710 into a ZFS-based FreeBSD 11.1 tape library bacula-sd

If you’ve read even a little of what I’ve written, the following points will not come as a surprise: I like FreeBSD I’m a fan of backups I use Bacula I like ZFS I have tape libraries In this post, I will cover all of the above and more. Photos will be included. New gear Full disclosure: the following links contain my Amazon referrer code. On the left is the ICY DOCK 2.5″

Converting a Dell R710 into a ZFS-based FreeBSD 11.1 tape library bacula-sd Read More »

x8dtu

NOTE: this post has been replaced by a newer version. The older post is still available This is x8dtu (named after the SuperMicro motherboard). This is the new FreshPorts server. In short: FreeBSD 11 booting off a mirrored pair of zfsroot SSDs 4.5TB of mirrored ZFS 196612 MB of RAM (yeah, that’s 196GB of RAM) SuperMicro X8TDU motherboard Intel Xeon E5620 @ 2.40GHz (two of those, giving 16 CPUs) NOTE: this post replaces

x8dtu Read More »

Moving FreshPorts

Today I moved the FreshPorts website from one server to another. My goal is for nobody to notice. In preparation for this move, I have: DNS TTL reduced to 60s Posted to Twitter Updated the status page Put the website put in offline mode: Sorry, the website is offline from 2017-11-05 17:01, for approximately 3 hours. It is now 2017-11-05 17:01. That works for both http and https: [dan@air01:~] $ wget -S http://www.freshports.org

Moving FreshPorts Read More »

Dumping PostgreSQL 9.4 to upgrade to PostgreSQL 9.6

FreeBSD 10.3 & PostgreSQL 9.4 on the old server, and FreeBSD 11.1 & PostgreSQL 9.6 on the new server. As part of the move from the old FreshPorts server (photos) to the new FreshPorts server, I’ll need to dump the database and copy it over. What? No zfs send? There is no ZFS on the old server. The rule of thumb when upgrading a PostgreSQL database is to dump with the pg_dump client

Dumping PostgreSQL 9.4 to upgrade to PostgreSQL 9.6 Read More »

/etc/rc.subr: 1391: Syntax error: “fi”: unexpected

Yesterday, I upgraded a DigitalOcean droplet from FreeBSD 10.3 to FreeBSD 11.1 just before I headed to work. I’ve done such upgrades several times before. They all went well. This one did not. Several issues cascaded to prevent me from completely this task in a timely manner. Let me describe the events as they unfolded. The freebsd-update From memory, because the system is not back online as I type this, the command I

/etc/rc.subr: 1391: Syntax error: “fi”: unexpected Read More »

Upgrading from FreeBSD 10.3 to 11.1 via freebsd-update and beadm

Yesterday I modified a server from booting off a raidz2 array, to booting off a newly created zpool. Why? Because HBAs are a pain to boot off. Instead, this server is now booting off a ZFS mirror of two SSDs, both of which are directly attached to the M/B. Today, I am upgrading this server from FreeBSD 10.3 to FreeBSD 11.1 by making use of beadm. WARNING! Not all steps of the freebsd-update

Upgrading from FreeBSD 10.3 to 11.1 via freebsd-update and beadm Read More »

Moving boot from one zpool to another

I’ve been having boot issues with a server containing 20 HDD, all behind HBAs. I have decided to start booting off SSDs. In that previous blog post, there was much speculation about where to mount the new drives, etc. In the meantime, I came up with a solution which did not involve magnets and used a pair of INTEL 730 SSDs I had in another chassis. Let’s start with how I configured those

Moving boot from one zpool to another Read More »

Scroll to Top