Here's another tip I forgot to post yesterday. How to increase the swap space on your NexentaStor server.

When I was trouble shooting our NexentaStore server when it has low available drive space, in the NexentaStor documentation I found that the default swap size is the memory size. For some reason we had a 1 gig swap file, and 4 gig of ram. Perhaps we didn't have all the ram populated on original install, so just to make sure everything was setup correct to help my trouble shooting, I went looking for a way to increase the swap space.

Since there wasn't any option I could find in the web gui, I was certain it was going to be a CLI thang. After some googling, I came across this:

http://www.crypticide.com/dropsafe/article/2649

I ssh-ed into the NexentaStor server as the admin user, and ran:

zfs set volsize=4G syspool/swap

This changed the swap space to the same size as the physical ram in the server.

I'd like to shout out to Dave who contacted me yesterday. Good to see people excited about this product, and it reminded me to keep posting up stuff on Nexenta and NexentaStor since it is a new product, and there isn't a heap of information out there yet.

I find great tips and solutions to problems daily via blogs and forums, so best I stay ontop of my work related blogging and give back to the community!

So part of this post is to document the hardware that I know works, and or, is in production with NexentaStor.

If you are currently researching the OpenSolaris HCL, it is a good start for picking out your hardware. From here, I would stick to this:

• Intel mobo and nic chipsets
• LSI controller cards

Here is a list of what I have in production with NexentaStor:

Motherboards:

• SuperMicro X7SBL-LN1

SAS/SATA Controllers:

• LSI SAS #SAS3081E Controller - set in JBOD mode

Drive Chassis:

• Supermicro SC836E1-R800B 16Bay Server Chassis (2 chassis daisy-chained via backplanes)
  
  • Coupled to Seagate ST31000340NS 1TB SATA drives

Network Cards:

•  Intel PRO/1000 PT Quad Port Server Adapter

Finding the correct cabling for backplanes and controller cards can be a real PITA sometimes, and I highly recommend you talk to these guys to get exactly what you need to hook up all the chassis, backplanes, and controller cards - http://www.cs-electronics.com

Finally, a Nexenta Support tip. If you wish to contact Nexenta support, the quickest and most efficient way to get to them is via the built in support ticketing system from within the web interface on your NexentaStor box (can also send one via command line). What it actually does, it will send Nexenta Support a breakdown of your setup as an attachment, and auto generates a ticket in their system. Don't bother emailing them, it takes much much longer that way - do it via the system they nicely provide coded right in the product.

NexentaStor has been lots of fun to work with, there are still a few hickups as mentioned earlier in my blog, but it is turning out to be a pretty cool solution for clients that are not wanting to throw down big bucks on boutique NAS/SANes during this recession. Oh, and do I hear de-dupe is around the corner for ZFS?! :)

I was experimenting around with the NDMP Backup options in NexentaStor. I enabled the service, and punched in the details of our Symantec BackupExec 12.5 server, with NDMP option enabled.

Not being really familiar with this option in BackupExec, I just set everything pretty much with the default, and unfortunately, when browsing for backup devices, Nexenta does not appear in the NDMP devices, so off I went and logged a support ticket with Nexenta.

Here is their response, not holding my breath, but it would be seriously kick ass if NDMP backups did work with BackupExec (not to mention would get great speed, and can point backups to "latest" folders within a special backup snapshot for example - nice point in time backups/archives to tape!)

Looks like we do not have many customers using BackupExec. In general, this is our policy to support 3rd party software only if there is enough evidence that this is either a standard, or used by a significant number of users (which would make it de-facto standard). BackupExec is neither. We may be able though to get to it after the next major release 3.0 planned for end of November, early Dec.

Now onto free space in NexentaStor. I do encourage you to keep a close eye on available space on your volumes. We were in a situation where a slight mistake in a rsync script, filled up our Nexenta box. We had on or less than 10% space left, and it ended up with some strange behaviour.

Everything from no access via web interface, the console on the server locking up when trying to remove snapshots via the web interface, and errors and dead drives appearing after scrub jobs were issued (which weren't really dead drives!). After we blew away a bunch of stuff, and snapshots via command line (setup snapshot destroy), things settled down again.

I really like the weekly reports that the system can send to you, surf through them just to make sure available space is in check, and all should be fine.