prostuff1 Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 If you are talking about using 5.0b5a then I suggest NOT doing that. There where more changes in the way unRAID handles the addition of disk assignment. The Announcement thread for 5.0b5a specifically asks the user to NOT run any addon's until they are confirmed working with the new beta. Quote Link to comment
01111000 Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 If you are talking about using 5.0b5a then I suggest NOT doing that. There where more changes in the way unRAID handles the addition of disk assignment. The Announcement thread for 5.0b5a specifically asks the user to NOT run any addon's until they are confirmed working with the new beta. Yeah, I know (I was reading a topic where people weren't even sure if unmenu worked correctly). Just was venting my frustrations. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 I was reading a topic where people weren't even sure if unmenu worked correctly Just was venting my frustrations. Venting your frustrations at those who create and maintain add-ons is probably not the best way to get them to help you. Nothing I've ever written has ever had a guarantee of working, especially through multiple releases of unRAID and its changes in the underlying OS and architecture. There is absolutely no way for me to simulate the conditions on all the servers out there, with all the various combination of options, settings, and add-ons. There WILL be conflicts. Recently somebody created an add-on that used port 8080 indirect conflict with unMENU. It caused things to break. It had nothing to do with unMENU. If unMENU does not work as expected, either stop using it, or work to supply requested information so it can be verified of the underlying cause of the issue. Most recently all I seem to read is people who cannot stop their array because the cache drive will not un-mount. Time to take the issue up with the person who created the package using the cache drive, or at least those who use it. I think it is time to STOP using the cache drive for add-ons when they impact the clean stop of the array. I too am venting my frustration, at impatience and insensitivity. Joe L. Quote Link to comment
jeff.lebowski Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Most recently all I seem to read is people who cannot stop their array because the cache drive will not un-mount. Time to take the issue up with the person who created the package using the cache drive, or at least those who use it. I think it is time to STOP using the cache drive for add-ons when they impact the clean stop of the array. I too am venting my frustration, at impatience and insensitivity. Joe L. What would be a valid alternative to using the cache drive for add-ons? Quote Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 What would be a valid alternative to using the cache drive for add-ons? A drive completely outside of the array and not in the purview of unRAID. Use SNAP or your own commands to mount the drive after unRAID start up and then start the applications from that drive. Quote Link to comment
jeff.lebowski Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 What would be a valid alternative to using the cache drive for add-ons? A drive completely outside of the array and not in the purview of unRAID. Use SNAP or your own commands to mount the drive after unRAID start up and then start the applications from that drive. Could a SNAP drive still be unmounted and used as a standard drive? What about eSATA? My mobo has an eSATA port, I have a dock, etc. How are the eSATA drivers installed into a version of unRAID? Quote Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Could a SNAP drive still be unmounted and used as a standard drive? What about eSATA? My mobo has an eSATA port, I have a dock, etc. How are the eSATA drivers installed into a version of unRAID? I have not personally used SNAP so I am not sure how exactly it works. eSATA would work just fine as it is essentially SATA with a different connector for external use. Quote Link to comment
01111000 Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 I was reading a topic where people weren't even sure if unmenu worked correctly Just was venting my frustrations. Venting your frustrations at those who create and maintain add-ons is probably not the best way to get them to help you. It's a shame we can't decipher voice tone over the internet. I'm not venting frustrations at the creator. It's just annoying that it isn't working on my setup. I appreciate the work that went into this package and am in no rush. I'm not demanding that mrmachine help me, although it is nice. This is the equivalent of a stripped screw. I can't blame the creator of the screw. Other people have used the same brand of screws and it has worked for them. Its frustrating that this had to happen to me, thats all. Now I have to find an alternate way of getting this screw out, which is more work than I intended to do, but in the end must be done to continue as normal. Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 It should just fire up and work without any issues like you are seeing. Lots of people have installed this manually so try manually creating the files on the disk. Most recently all I seem to read is people who cannot stop their array because the cache drive will not un-mount. Time to take the issue up with the person who created the package using the cache drive, or at least those who use it. Joe L. I think I'll go over to the wiki and stick a big warning in there that you must stop those applications to stop the array. mrmachine - I suggest you add a warning in the information or about section of the packages to say the same. I agree with Joe that people are installing these without understanding that the cache disk will not unmount while they are running. I understand your comment about using the cache drive, however, in a perfect world, these apps could be automatically shut down when the array is stopped (but no hook in unRAID). My array hasn't been stopped since unRAID 4.7b1 came out (about a month). So, sure it's a pain to stop these applications when stopping the array but it shouldn't be a very common occurance. Peter Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Joe - The unMENU Stop button will kill any running processes to free up the disks and allow them to unmount, correct? If you confirm this then I'll add this as one method to stop the array with these programs running. Peter Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 By far the easiest, if you already have a cache" drive installed, is to create it as two partitions. One for the cache drive, the other for whatever use you desire. A few minutes with cfdisk and you're set. Joe L. Quote Link to comment
jeff.lebowski Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Joe - The unMENU Stop button will kill any running processes to free up the disks and allow them to unmount, correct? If you confirm this then I'll add this as one method to stop the array with these programs running. Peter unMENU stop button? Is this in the User Scripts page listed as Kill UnMENU? Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Joe - The unMENU Stop button will kill any running processes to free up the disks and allow them to unmount, correct? If you confirm this then I'll add this as one method to stop the array with these programs running. Peter The unMENU stop button did work at one time... recently it had been reported it killed networking, and the routing table, and emhttp. It sends a TERM signal to processes. That can be ignored by them if they like. it then sends a KILL, that typically cannot be caught. It is not a solution. It is a last-ditch method to attempt to stop the array prior to crashing the server by pushing the power off button. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Joe - The unMENU Stop button will kill any running processes to free up the disks and allow them to unmount, correct? If you confirm this then I'll add this as one method to stop the array with these programs running. Peter unMENU stop button? Is this in the User Scripts page listed as Kill UnMENU? No. It is the button on the array-management page. Quote Link to comment
jeff.lebowski Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Joe - The unMENU Stop button will kill any running processes to free up the disks and allow them to unmount, correct? If you confirm this then I'll add this as one method to stop the array with these programs running. Peter unMENU stop button? Is this in the User Scripts page listed as Kill UnMENU? No. It is the button on the array-management page. WHEW! That Stop Array button actually unmounted the cache drive, opposed to the stop array button on the unRAID Main page which did NOT unmount the cache drive. 1) Shutdown SAB from the web interface 2) Click the Stop Python button in the User Scripts page 3) Open myMain 4) Spin down all drives (they do as such) 5) Click Stop Array in the Array Management page 6) Profit! Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 It is not a solution. OK, I won't mention trying to use it to shut-down these processes. 1) Shutdown SAB from the web interface 2) Click the Stop Python button in the User Scripts page 3) Open myMain 4) Spin down all drives (they do as such) 5) Click Stop Array in the Array Management page 6) Profit! You should be able to do step 1 or 2 (either step should stop SAB) and then step 5. Spinning down the drives before stopping is pointless. Peter Quote Link to comment
jeff.lebowski Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Noted. Thanks for the clarification Peter. If we can figure out how to consistently stop add-ons, that would be great. I don't mind testing, although it would be done on a production server. Slightly scary... Quote Link to comment
mrmachine Posted February 28, 2011 Author Share Posted February 28, 2011 mrmachine - I suggest you add a warning in the information or about section of the packages to say the same. I agree with Joe that people are installing these without understanding that the cache disk will not unmount while they are running. The apps should all shutdown clean when they receive a kill signal, so using the unMENU stop array button should stop these applications normally and then stop the array. Edit: Perhaps we could have two options. Stop Array - repeatedly sends kill signal (which can be ignored) to running processes and tries to stop the array. Stop Array NOW - sends kill signal (which cannot be ignored) to running processes and stops the array as quickly as possible. I'd like to do some more testing and find out exactly how or why unMENU and the unRAID web interface and network connectivity were killed in previous instances. If we can isolate that, then perhaps we can make the unMENU Stop Array button safe and robust enough to use all the time (and have it linked to the power button and ctrl-alt-del, etc). Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 What about people that run SAB without unMENU? What about people that don't know they have to use the unMENU Stop button? Some users simply don't know they need to stop these apps to get the array to stop. It needs to be given as a warning or notice that is obvious and can't be missed. Or, fix the packages so that the array can be stopped with the normal stop button. Peter Quote Link to comment
mrmachine Posted February 28, 2011 Author Share Posted February 28, 2011 What about people that run SAB without unMENU? What about people that don't know they have to use the unMENU Stop button? Some users simply don't know they need to stop these apps to get the array to stop. It needs to be given as a warning or notice that is obvious and can't be missed. Or, fix the packages so that the array can be stopped with the normal stop button. Peter People who have installed these apps without unMENU are obviously not using these new unMENU packages to install and stop the app and are probably a lot more familiar with the way unRAID works and the way the apps were installed (by necessity of doing the install). How they choose to stop the app depends on their installation method. These packages are supposed to make it easy to install by using unMENU. They can be stopped with the Stop <app> buttons, and they should also stop gracefully when using the unMENU Stop Array button. I'll add a note to the package description for each app to indicate that. If/when the unRAID Stop Array button fires events that we can listen for or sends it's own kill signal (which these apps do already respond to), then it should be possible to use the unRAID Stop Array button. Quote Link to comment
jeff.lebowski Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 I think there's an important point of distinction here. unMENU Stop Array and unRAID Stop Array do different things. I'm new to unRAID and did not know the difference until today. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 I think there's an important point of distinction here. unMENU Stop Array and unRAID Stop Array do different things. I'm new to unRAID and did not know the difference until today. unRAID stop array will never terminate process. It will wait forever for a disk to not be busy. uMENU's stop array is a last-ditch attempt to kill processes as needed to allow the array to stop cleanly. It kills whatever it needs that is keeping a disk busy, first sending a TERM signal, then a KILL signal. It will cause partially written files to occur. You could lose data if it is in the middle of being written. If it is used, it is because you've given up on terminating the processes yourself and you are one step from pulling the power cord. Joe L. Quote Link to comment
mrmachine Posted March 1, 2011 Author Share Posted March 1, 2011 Ideally I think the unRAID Stop Array button should try to shutdown any processes that are using the disk. I think a normal kill signal should do that (at least it does with these three apps). If it keeps waiting and waiting and the processes are not shutting down, then at some point the user should be presented with a list of the processes that are preventing shutdown and asked if they want to forcibly terminate them (instead of just repeating a "waiting" message forever). The unMENU Stop Array button (linked to ctrl-alt-del etc) should remain as it is, a last ditch attempt to shut down the array quickly (e.g. when running off battery power) to prevent losing parity sync. Quote Link to comment
jeff.lebowski Posted March 1, 2011 Share Posted March 1, 2011 I think there's an important point of distinction here. unMENU Stop Array and unRAID Stop Array do different things. I'm new to unRAID and did not know the difference until today. unRAID stop array will never terminate process. It will wait forever for a disk to not be busy. uMENU's stop array is a last-ditch attempt to kill processes as needed to allow the array to stop cleanly. It kills whatever it needs that is keeping a disk busy, first sending a TERM signal, then a KILL signal. It will cause partially written files to occur. You could lose data if it is in the middle of being written. If it is used, it is because you've given up on terminating the processes yourself and you are one step from pulling the power cord. Joe L. Thanks for that Joe. I've read and read over these forums and I don't think this level of explanation of the stop buttons has been posted until now. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted March 1, 2011 Share Posted March 1, 2011 Ideally I think the unRAID Stop Array button should try to shutdown any processes that are using the disk. I think a normal kill signal should do that (at least it does with these three apps). If it keeps waiting and waiting and the processes are not shutting down, then at some point the user should be presented with a list of the processes that are preventing shutdown and asked if they want to forcibly terminate them (instead of just repeating a "waiting" message forever). The unMENU Stop Array button (linked to ctrl-alt-del etc) should remain as it is, a last ditch attempt to shut down the array quickly (e.g. when running off battery power) to prevent losing parity sync. It is one of the features in the 5.0beta release. An event system we can use to cleanly stop applications before the array is stopped, and cleanly start them once the array is started. Now there is just an event stub, and no event handler just yet, but some day there will be. I still use my own event handling system. It is a script that monitors for start-up and shut-down events and specifically designed to start and stop the processes I have running. It has been in place close to a year. Do a search for unraid_addon_control.sh and you'll find it. Joe L Joe L Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.