JonathanM

Please post a screenshot of the WEBUI when you have virtualbox running and some VMs are shown as in session and others aren't but are running.

A list of all running VMs is saved to vms_session.cfg when: Any VM is started Any VM is SAVESTATEd When VirtualBox is stopped via the WEBUI So if I start and stop VM's using phpvirtualbox, the sessionlist is never updated? I ran into an issue yesterday where I tried to stop the array so I could reboot, and I intentionally left some VM's running to see how the plugin would handle it. The VM's that were on the sessionlist savestated automatically, but a VM that I started from phpvirtualbox was still running, and kept the array from stopping. I manually saved it from the command line, and the array finished stopping.

How does the "Part of session" list get updated? I have several machines that I control using phpvirtualbox, but they don't ever appear in the session list, only the "running" list. Do you have to start the vm from your plugin to have it become "part of session"?

I can confirm the same behaviour on a fresh install of 6b6, I got around it by editing the configuration file directly and not touching the "Save below configuration" button. The only addons I'm running are the apcupsd plugin, the apache webserver plugin, and the unmenu ssmtp email stuff. I haven't tried it without the other plugins, so I don't know if one of them is causing the problem.

As long as the drive size and configuration aren't manipulated by System A or B, then yes. Some motherboards do bad things to drives by setting a HPA which subtracts from the size of the drive. Also, some USB drive adapters change the geometry of the drive. You should be able to check the preclear signature on the target system and tell right away if the drive is properly precleared for that system.

Does it come up if you type \\tower in the explorer or find bar?

Current case study. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=32849.0 Granted this user didn't follow correct procedures for diagnosing issues, but unraid didn't help matters either. If the default action for an unclean shutdown was to boot to maintenance mode with no plugins and not automatically start the array or any automatic parity check, this particular user would be in a very different situation right now. The automatic start of a correcting parity check made a bad situation much worse. IMHO, correcting parity checks that run automatically are evil. Writing data to a disk without my explicit approval is BAD.

There is no widely used hot spare option. Anything like that would need to be set up yourself. The whole point of the current set up is that writes to the USB drive are few and far between, so regular backups are a better option than a hot mirror. If something screws up the USB, you would be better off with the last known good backup instead of mirroring whatever corruption occurred to screw up the USB. Unraid the OS runs pretty much entirely from RAM, and is "reinstalled" fresh every boot anyway. Any customizations will need to be configured to be redone at boot, typically called from the go file.

However, testing the drive in another system uncovers drive errors only. This can be good or bad, depending. If you have a controller, RAM, or PSU issue in the server it can effect preclear results as well. Ideally you should get a clean preclear cycle in the exact circumstances that the drive will be used in the server.

The ability to safely launch it from MyMain would be great. I use a combination of the email notifications and the MyMain page to check preclear status currently.

Are you planning on working with Joe to integrate this with his work, or are you going to rewrite the whole thing to be your supported version? There have been a whole lot of people wanting a browser integrated plug in version of preclear for a long time.

Does this new method reduce the amount of work that the drive is asked to do? I was under the impression that the slowness of the preclear was on purpose to thoroughly test all parts of the drive possible in a reasonable period of time. Pseudo random seeks and other stuff to really work it hard. Here is a quote directly from Joe.

And here is the issue. UNRAID AUTOMATICALLY STARTS A CORRECTING PARITY CHECK AFTER A CRASH. It doesn't give you the option to evaluate the situation before it starts writing data to the parity disk.

I have personally lost data because of a correcting parity check. I have tried to stress the importance of NOT writing ANYTHING to the disks if you suspect there is a problem until you know the nature of the problem. I really wish there was a way to boot the array to a diagnostic mode that there would be no writes of any sort, read only for all data. This topic has been debated to death in the past, and suffice it to say, in an ideal world where the disks and controllers behave as designed when an error is detected, a correcting parity check is the correct action. If something isn't behaving as it should, you can easily get into a situation where you really don't want to write to a drive without running further diagnostics.

Just be sure you can only plug safe loads into it. You wouldn't want a power drill, vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, etc killing your UPS... This UPS can handle it. It's a Powerware Prestige 9 2KVA, and the output is 16 Amps. It has no problem with laser printers, etc. Yes, it will handle a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Heh, I ran the outlet in my study to a iec male socket in the server room instead of the breaker box, and just used a standard PC power cord from the UPS to the iec socket. That way all the battery backups are in one room with the server, and I have a battery backup protected outlet without the bulk and noise in the main area of the house.

Just want to remind people thinking about doing this to remember to put your ethernet switch and router on battery backup as well.

Depends. dnsmasq can provide several different services. If you don't enable conflicting overlapping services, you should be fine.

The manual says it should be there, Legacy LAN as a boot option. Perhaps you may have to use the other network port?

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?board=31.0

Many disk browsers access the files to determine file type and display thumbnails.

Yes.

Any location other than /boot/* or /mnt/* in a stock unraid install is on a RAM drive.

If you are only using it for short periods, power consumption isn't a concern. Just throw together the cheapest box you can, use your castoff smaller hard drives, whatever gets you a current backup. Do it sooner rather than later. I deal with people on a regular basis that all say, I was planning on backing it up, but I never got around to it. Data recovery is VERY expensive in some cases, you could put together a very nice 20TB unraid server for the average price of an expedited clean room recovery.