Linux noobie+ want's to know: Can UnRaid be ported to another Distro?

[jimwhite]

In theretical and/or practical terms, what would be required for me to move my UnRaid box over to run under Ubuntu as opposed to Slackware?  If it requires some recompilation of the "file system driver" (?) would Tom be willing to do it for some radical wacko like myself? 

 

I put together a pretty overkill box for it and I was envisioning going the virtual machine route, but Ubuntu, and MythBuntu in particular, look pretty slick as a base system.  I'm not sure I would get the needed performance for a Myth box backend recording tv shows as a VM.

 

AB9 Pro

Q6600 or E4300 OC'd to 3ghz

4gb DDr2-800

6 (so far) Seagate 1TB

2 Seagate 500gb, 1 Cache and 1 Linux drive

2 Rosewill 2port SATA300 cards for future expansion

4 Kingwin 3 in 2 Trayless cages

Thermaltake Armor Chassis

OCZ 600W supply

 

Any comments welcomed....

 

Jim

 

[musicmann]

I don't know "exactly" what it would take, but I doubt if it would be a trivial task.  Granted, I'm a noob, too, but I think there would be a good bit of work involved to get it running under a different distro.

 

Please don't take these comments the wrong way, as I don't intend to be offensive, but here are my thoughts.

 

First of all, I want to do something similar to what you're proposing--have unRAID serve my virtual machines as well.  In fact, my second machine (a windows box which is currently hosting my VMs) which will eventually become my main unRAID machine is very similar to your setup.  It's an e4300 that I'm planning to OC.  Anyway, for me, the main goal of my unRAID is just serving my media files.  Hosting VMs is only a secondary goal, so to keep my unRAID as stable as possible for media-serving purposes, I want it to be pretty lean at that level without extra stuff running.  For me, I don't see using my unRAID as a desktop because that would put numerous apps running alongside unRAID which could compromise stability, but putting those apps in a protected "sandbox" could mean running them with only limited potential for negative sideeffects.  If you need Ubuntu for Myth purposes, maybe running them at the VM level would work for you.

 

My second point would be that I'd prefer Tom work on additional functionality for unRAID instead of simply reimplementing the same functionality on a different platform.  One of the greatest things about unRAID has been the improvements over the years.  I really don't want to slow that train down.

 

Finally, I'd say that this could be a great opportunity to learn more about Linux.  There are a lot of threads here about people working on getting VMware to work (either on top of unRAID or as a host for unRAID) and about compiling custom kernels.  A lot of this info would be directly applicable to getting it to run under another distro.  I'm learning a lot trying to figure out some of the VMware stuff.

 

Just my thoughts...

[NAS]

There has been talk of this in the past. My opinion is that it shouldn't be done for a couple of reasons.

 

1. People here paid for unRAID. Porting to another distro does not help the paid userbase.

2. Its hard enough as it is to get money for a Linux product. Once is starts being migrated to another distro this becomes even harder. The user base would go up sure but the majority wouldn't want to pay anything... thats just the nature of Linux. So what we end up with is a massive increase in free users placing a burden on the community.

 

Sure if Tom scaled up his operation, more staff, bigger premises, dedicated paid support team but thats a big deal and wouldnt happen overnight as it costs alot to do it.

 

For this to be a viable option some big corp would need to buy Tom out and make the source completely GPL. That way Tom gets cash and the community gets the product... essentially 100,000 people purchase the product in one go

[jimwhite]

In theretical and/or practical terms, what would be required for me to move my UnRaid box over to run under Ubuntu as opposed to Slackware?

Still no answer to the basic question....

 

[WeeboTech]

In order to bring unRAID over to another distribution I believe you would have to recompile the kernel for that distro replacing the current MD driver with the unRAID MD driver.

 

Then you would need to bring over the unRAID control program emhttp and resolve any shared libraries that it requires.

Then bring over shfs and resolve any shared libraries that it requires. (Although I don't know much about this).

 

I believe you would still need a boot partition, weather it be the boot flash or part of a filesystem.

 

Upon startup you would need to fire off emhttp and/or shfs.

 

I believe emhttp does not like PAM so if the destination distro requires pam you may be out of luck.

I don't know this as fact, only from one of the other members who mentioned it on the forum and their blog.

In order to use more then the basic version, you would still need to purchase a license and place it on the boot partition in the correct location.

 

I have not done any of this, so it's only speculation from what I've learned.

 

 

[jimwhite]

So, ultimately it sounds like it is possible... I'm nowhere near trying it yet, but it's further inducement for me to learn a LOT more about Linux... who says learning stops at over sixty?   I guess my first project will be to get it running under a full Slackware distro as posted elsewhere on this forum... as to emhttp, it would sure be nice if we could even get it to just use another port instead of 80, no?  Then maybe Apache could run along side of it...?

 

 

[Joe L.]

Using another port instead of 80 is easy... use the "-p NN" option of emhttp.  You can edit your "go" script to put it on any spare port you desire.

 

Example:

emhttp -p 8080

 

 

Joe L.

[jimwhite]

I see I have a LOT to learn 

 

I Googled emhttp and found only that it is embedded http server.  Obviously, in UnRaid Tom has given it a lot more functionality.  How did you find out what the command line options are?  Or did you just run it with a "?" ?  I was thinking there might be some on-line doc that talked about it.

 

Do you recall which modules won't run in multiprocessor kernel ?

 

Tom... any chance you could compile the proprietary stuff in 64 bit with no warranty for us to play with  

 

Jim

 

[Joe L.]

I see I have a LOT to learn 

 

I Googled emhttp and found only that it is embedded http server.  Obviously, in UnRaid Tom has given it a lot more functionality.  How did you find out what the command line options are?  Or did you just run it with a "?" ?  I was thinking there might be some on-line doc that talked about it.

 

Do you recall which modules won't run in multiprocessor kernel ?

 

Tom... any chance you could compile the proprietary stuff in 64 bit with no warranty for us to play with  

 

Jim

 

Nah, it was in his release notes a while ago.

[jimwhite]

That's one of the most frustrating things about UnRaid, I think... I have to read every one of Weebotech's, JoeL's, and Tom's posts in order to find all these gems.... 

 

Tom, what about the 64 bit compiles... are you here?

 

[Joe L.]

That's one of the most frustrating things about UnRaid, I think... I have to read every one of Weebotech's, JoeL's, and Tom's posts in order to find all these gems.... 

 

Tom, what about the 64 bit compiles... are you here?

 

Yeah,if you read all our posts, you will soon lose the "newbee" label.  You will be an unRAID expert. 

[josetann]

I believe emhttp does not like PAM so if the destination distro requires pam you may be out of luck.

I don't know this as fact, only from one of the other members who mentioned it on the forum and their blog.

In order to use more then the basic version, you would still need to purchase a license and place it on the boot partition in the correct location.

 

emhttp seems to play well with PAM, in fact the new vmware server beta requires it (unlike the current stable version, which is a pain to install but could be tricked into thinking pam was installed when it wasn't).  What it doesn't like is shadow passwords.  Oddly enough, all I have to do is take out the x on the line for the root user in /etc/passwd, emhttp is happy, and my password continues to work as usual.  With the x in place though (which indicates that user uses a shadow password), trying to access the web interface prompts you for a username and password (and no you can't just use your root username and password, nor any other combination I could think of).

 

Edit:  This will make more sense for you.  This line in your /etc/passwd will make emhttp ask for a username and password, though it won't recognize your username and password, thus making it useless:

 

root:x:0:0::/root:/bin/bash

 

This line works fine with emhttp, and at least on Slackware it doesn't keep you from using shadow passwords:

 

root::0:0::/root:/bin/bash

 

The x is supposed to enable and disable shadow passwords, but having it not there doesn't seem to phase Slackware, it'll keep using your shadow password regardless.  Maybe the system just sees that there's no regular password and before using that, double checks the shadow file?  Or maybe it checks the shadow password file first regardless of the x?  Either way, just remove the x for root, your shadow passwords still work, and emhttp will happily let you use the web interface for unRAID.

 

Oh, as far as the license key, yes it still needs to be on the boot partition, or rather it needs to be located in /boot/config/.  You also need to have a usb key with UNRAID as the volume name mounted, though where doesn't matter.  Basically the system needs to see that there's a usb key named UNRAID (to do so it must be mounted somewhere), and the license key at /boot/config/yourlicense.key (just throw your license key in /boot/config).  It doesn't care if the usb key is mounted as /boot or not.

[jimwhite]

okay, I've added all posts by josetann as must reads 

 

 

[WeeboTech]

Thanks for correcting me Josetann.

Have you tried putting an encrypted password in root's password entry?

I believe if the password field has an encrypted value, the routines will not go to the shadow file.

[josetann]

Thanks for correcting me Josetann.

Have you tried putting an encrypted password in root's password entry?

I believe if the password field has an encrypted value, the routines will not go to the shadow file.

 

Nope, the line posted above is a straight copy/paste from my existing /etc/passwd file:

 

root::0:0::/root:/bin/bash

 

All the other usernames have the x, i.e. the next line is:

 

bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/bin/false

 

Only the root entry needs to have the x removed.  My root password still works, I thought it wouldn't (and from the docs I've read it shouldn't, with that entry above I should be able to login without a password), but it does.  I haven't tried putting an encrypted password in the /etc/passwd file itself, I suppose it could make emhttp ask for a username/password and actually accept your actual username/password, but I haven't needed to try that yet.

[musicmann]

okay, I've added all posts by josetann as must reads 

 

 

 

I agree with you there!  In fact, I think a really good way to get started on your quest is to follow josetann's step-by-step guide on his (external) site. http://www.thetechguide.com/howto/unraid-on-hard-drive.html

 

In the current version, he provides a link to a file called "linux-2.6.24.4.tar.gz."  In this step, he basically simplified two steps for us (read: "us" as "me" because I was having a psuedo-problem booting my new kernel).  The steps he simplifies are 1) copying the md source files from the unRAID software and 2) creating a working kernel .config file.  For the learning purposes of getting unRAID running on a different distro, I'd suggest doing this part manually, as described in this post by WeeboTech:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1244.msg10259#msg10259.  This will give a better feel of what will probably be needed to compile on a different distro.

 

[jjchambers]

If you get unraid running on a full version of slackware then just follow http://www.mnspace.net/articles/mythtv-slack12.1.htmlthis page to get mythtv installed on Slackware.  All I want is the mythtv backend running on my unraid server so I don't have to have 2 24x7 boxes running.  I can use the mythweb to schedule the recordings, and my unraid box (with my HDHomeRun attached) can record the show and trascode to whatever format so I can stream them to my xbox running xbmc.  I have no need to watch live tv thru the myth box.

 

Has anyone tried this?  If I had a spare box I try setting it all up since I have a second license for unraid.

 

Let me know.  I'd really like to have the 2 together.

 

J