Author name: Dan Langille

I've been playing with computers since I read an Elementary Electronics magazine way back in the 1970s. I started contributing to open source projects in 1998. After that, I gradually moved from being a software developer to being a systems administrator.

Using a sparse git checkout to build vuxml files

This post shows how I used a git spare checkout to build vuxml files without having the whole ports tree present. In this post: FreeBSD 14.2 FreeBSD 14.3-STABLE git-2.50.1 git-tiny-2.50.1 This came about when recent commits to security/vuxml weren’t showing up on in my host, despite doing pkg audit -f – this was several hours after the commit. trouble told me to check this jail on that host. Eventually I figured out the […]

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Clear the existing good drive and add it to the new zpool

In recent posts: Doing a bit of stress work on a new HDD x8dtu: adding in the smaller drive Swapping zpools – moving from using main_tank to using data If you have a look over those posts, you’ll see why you never want to downsize a zpool. In this post: FreeBSD 14.2 removing the zfs labels from an drive which was part of a zpool which is no longer in use destroying the

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Swapping zpools – moving from using main_tank to using data

As mentioned in Doing a bit of stress work on a new HDD, I have a failing 5TB drive which is going to be replace by a 4TB drive. Only about 1.45TB are used, so there’s plenty of space to grow. If you get one thing from this post, don’t be downsizing zpools like this. I would have had much less work and opportunity for error, if I had returned that 4TB drive

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x8dtu: adding in the smaller drive

I was up at 5:30 AM today. I packed the car and headed out. I arrived within the datacenter at about 8:15 or so. By 8:50, I was on IRC and the photos of the FreeBSD racks were uploading. Since I was going there anyway, I did some inventory and disposal work (a decommissioned server, about 25 old HDD, and various bits and pieces). I must say though, I’m not liking this option.

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Doing a bit of stress work on a new HDD

As foreshadowed in x8dtu – drive problems, I will be visiting a data center soon to replace a 4TB HDD. The replacement HDD arrived last night. It was unceremoniously tossed onto the front porch by the courier. However, it was properly packaged. I’m sure it’s fine. The original idea: put this drive into a host, and write some data to it, to exercise it a bit. As you will soon learn, that is

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x8dtu – main ssds: how worn are they?

Let’s look at these two SSDs (full smartctl output appears at the end). pool: zroot state: ONLINE status: Some supported and requested features are not enabled on the pool. The pool can still be used, but some features are unavailable. action: Enable all features using ‘zpool upgrade’. Once this is done, the pool may no longer be accessible by software that does not support the features. See zpool-features(7) for details. scan: scrub repaired

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Adding in a stand-by spare drive for ZFS on FreeBSD

This is a follow up to Adding in a hot-spare for zfs on FreeBSD from two months ago. The replacement for the returned drive has arrived and after sitting for many weeks on my coffee table, it is installed in r730-03. Here it is, as found in /var/log/messages – this host is a Dell R730 which has drive cages allowing me to insert the drive without powering off the host. Jun 30 16:17:15

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FreeBSD – view mongodb featureCompatibilityVersion

This took me a while to figure out. First, I learned I needed (re Mongo shell (mongosh) is missing. I built and installed databases/mongosh. Then I ran this command: [13:00 unifi01 dvl ~] % mongosh –port 27117 Current Mongosh Log ID: 686138ea47e9a86d2a5e3cea Connecting to: mongodb://127.0.0.1:27117/?directConnection=true&serverSelectionTimeoutMS=2000&appName=mongosh+2.3.8 Using MongoDB: 7.0.21 Using Mongosh: 2.3.8 For mongosh info see: https://www.mongodb.com/docs/mongodb-shell/ To help improve our products, anonymous usage data is collected and sent to MongoDB periodically (https://www.mongodb.com/legal/privacy-policy). You

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