Backup Backup server - Part 3

 Adding storage and general software.

Now i have planned to create this server for some time.

What made me do it, is that one day googling i found this post. Basically Muffn_ combined some software that i didn't even know existed.

The short version is.

Debian for a stable system

SnapRaid for a flexible storage system, that doesn't use too many resources for my old N40L

Btrfs filesystem and snapshots to keep incomming / moving data safe. I will furthermore use the compression feature of the filesystem, as that will make disk usage more simple.

MergerFs to place the data on the disks.

Power down inactive disks

Turn on the backup server from my Main server, and shut it down, once backup is done, and SnapRaid hashing has been done

But first things are first. I started by removing the compatible wifi usb dongle, to see if the other one would play nicely. The system didn't even hickup as but that was because it was using the new adapter. For some reason it wouldn't change to the old one. Oh well. If i remember i will replace the new for the old on next reboot.

Edit:

Got it.

Used sudo iwconfig to get the interface name.

Then copied the functioning ethernet interface in /ect/network/interfaces, changing the name to the name of the second adapter.

Now it accepts ripping one adapter out, and adding the other one.

Then there the x/KDE thing. Lets disable the autostart at boot, to save resources

we do a 

systemctl set-default multi-user.target

and reboot.

Then on to the router, to assign a fixed Ip

Back to the main course.

i want to do the same as Muffn_ in that i want to use the ssd for caching incoming files. One of the reasons for this is also that i want to enable compression on the storage disks. Having read his blog, i found a very descriptive schematic of what i wanted to do. I wont steal or replicate his diagram, i will instead say this. I have no /mnt/array01 nor /mnt/Array02.

Now heres the fun part.

Muffn_ did at time of writing, not write part 4 of the saga yet. so instead i have to glean the things i can from the descriptions, and see what i can figure out from his ansible script.

Let the digging commense.

Ansible seems to be among other things an automated install script thinghy, so i will steal  learn as much as i can from it.

Having dug around a little bit, i relaised that its just a way of chugging down what you want to do, using a script language i don't know. I do this myself a fair bit when working with my robot... creating code so i don't have to do something. So off i go to try and figure out how this script would work.

Now as far as i could decipher you have to actually run the script on another computer, called a the control node, that then installs on the Managed node. This could be a skill that's useful, so of reading tutorials i go.

My idea now, is to fork the ansible script, and make my adjustmenst as i need them.

More will follow in part 4

Backup Backup server - Part 2

 Well, nothing ever really works like you would like the first time.... Or the second, or the 10th.

So now im writing this on my laptop

Anyways, the computer did in fact not reboot. Trying to mount the disk and figure out what was wrong, just showed me that the files that were supposed to be on the disk weren't there.

So i tried from the kde live cd, and that just made me realize how much i have missed kde, from when i used SUSE in the olden days. It actually felt faster, more snappy than the xfce live distro !!. 

Anyhows. 

I tried to get the installation going from the latest Netinst iso, that failed as well.

Then i got an idea. Perhaps im just too impatient.

Perhaps i can chain boot the usb3 stick from the usb3 card, and speed up the disk access.

So in with an older boot usb, that contains a chainloading distro, the install drive went into the usb3 in the back.

Booting. Nope, cant see the usb3 connected drive. (Note to self, can i add the needed bios thinghy to to bios, Perhaps adding the server remote that the chipset supports as well ?? Ill park this here, as somethign for another day)

Now on this old boot stick, was an older version of the netInst for Debian 12. So because i'm too lazy to change the usb sticks, i tried booting this one.

This opened a simple graphical installer, and i'm currently installing the base system.

Settings like language, placement and so on are always kind of difficult, as i like my keyboard/time/locales to be Danish, but then language to be american english. 

I deselected the graphical system, added SSH-server. and let it run.

Installed the Grub boot loader. Decided to mess with the installation, and inst0alled the grub boot loader to the Intel disk, and the first disks on the internal controller, and the last disk on the internal controller as this is seen as /dev/sda

So basically to /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sdf. I need to do some digging into if this is a good idea, and if i can trick the system into always updating all boot confs at once. Edit: Having done some googling, it doesn't seem to be necessary to do a grub update, just because of a kernel update.

Then i pressed finish installation, and hey presto it booted.

So now to install kde, not that i want it to start as default, i just like to have it as it makes following a tutorial from the net simpler.

off to install kde we go

As i use integrated amd graphics i skip the steps on nvidia.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install kde-standard plasma-nm

Then i needed to fix the new wifi card that wasn't detected.

 Reading from the ubuntu forums i found the following.

install kernel and build thinghys

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential git dkms bc

Then get the latest driver from git, and compile

Git clone https://github.com/morrownr/8821cu-20210916.git
cd 8821cu-20210916
sudo ./install-driver.sh

Waited for the build to complete

 (a 1.3Ghz, dualcore Turion II cpu takes absolute AGES to do this)

Chose the default something for a file, and did a reboot as ordered.

Doing this booted directly into kde. Fine for now.

Later i will disable the kde startup

i will continue the log in part 3, working again on the server it self