Screen (+utempter) included as standard


itimpi

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As the size of drives increase jobs such as pre-clears and file system checks/repairs are taking increasing amounts of time.  If doing this via a telnet session then it is useful to make use of screen so that the job can continue running even if the telnet session is ended.  It is easy enough to add screen manually, but I think it would be a good idea if it was included as standard so that it was part of the supported software.

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  • 2 months later...

Adding more command line tools to unRAID isn't a priority right now.  If a feature is needed, let's try to figure out a way to make it work within the webGui and slate it as a feature request that way.

 

In addition, if folks are able to download a slackbuild for it today and either dump it in the extra folder or otherwise get it on unRAID, that is probably going to be the best method for the time being.

 

Just trying to be open and direct about this...

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...If a feature is needed, let's try to figure out a way to make it work within the webGui and slate it as a feature request that way...

Don't see any reason to get the webGUI involved for screen. Not suggesting that it be an optional add-on, nano was added and now nobody has the option to not have nano.

 

Not trying to argue. Just don't see what the webGUI has to do with this particular case.

 

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The general principal is that everything supported is done via the GUI and requiring users to drop into a shell is a fail.

 

Given this; since almost no one should be in the shell those than need it should be capable of installing what they need.

 

a.k.a the nano debate again but since then v6 has matured and a clearer vision of how this will work is coming together

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Having just decided to setup a v6 server can i say that the omission of simple tools like screen caused me, a total novice, considerable grief when it came to introducing a couple of disks to the system. Wouldve helped enormously if it had been there. Command line means virtually nothing to me but i did need to preclear the particular disks so why not from within a gui??

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Having just decided to setup a v6 server can i say that the omission of simple tools like screen caused me, a total novice, considerable grief when it came to introducing a couple of disks to the system. Wouldve helped enormously if it had been there. Command line means virtually nothing to me but i did need to preclear the particular disks so why not from within a gui??

 

It's on the roadmap: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=34425.0

 

unRAID 6.0 is in beta for too long and every time you add something the final version is pushed further away. So it's pretty much feature frozen right now.

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I understand that but, given that i hadn't a clue on how to go about installing screen, which everyone recommends using, then i almost gave up on trying out v6 as a consequence of it not being available. Surely it HAS to be available through unraid front end. It appears, yet again, that it's expected that a user has a working knowledge. This must be putting off a lot of potential new users.

 

Ps .. is that the right url quoted for the roadmap ?

 

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I understand that but, given that i hadn't a clue on how to go about installing screen, which everyone recommends using, then i almost gave up on trying out v6 as a consequence of it not being available. Surely it HAS to be available through unraid front end. It appears, yet again, that it's expected that a user has a working knowledge. This must be putting off a lot of potential new users.

 

Ps .. is that the right url quoted for the roadmap ?

I don't think this is a key feature and does not impact the majority of users. If you want to add it, you can.  We are not building into unraid itself. Nano is a text editor and isn't in the same realm of what screen is.  And at the end of the day, clearly its not an issue that screen wasn't built in for you as you've been able to get by on your own.  As NAS has said, the folks that want it can add it themselves.

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Believe me ... it WAS an issue by its omission. I very nearly jacked the whole build because i had no idea how to include it onto my server. Something as fundamental as that, which everyone references in their replies when it comes to adding disks to the system really should be included no matter how 'basic' a function you consider it to have. To me it needed to be there and would have saved me much grief!

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Can someone well versed in plugin xml format build a plugin that will automatically download the packages from one of slackware's mirror sites?

 

 

It's only two packages.

Agree with weebo here. Someone who wants to do this could do so with minimal effort. We at LT are not going to spend time on this as screen is not in my opinion a "standard" tool. Its an advanced user tool that won't get used by the majority of users.

 

The simple fact is that the majority of unraid users do not drop to command line / SSH.

 

Nano was added only because there was an overwhelming push by developers for its inclusion. And because I always had to pull up a command reference when I was forced to use vi ;-)

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Is that right?

 

Surely the majority DO drop to command line for the likes of preclearing drives. Or am i wrong and they just add uncleared drives to their arrays?? Be surprised if they did.

Although I personally would also like to see screen included as standard, this is unfortunately probably not a key driver as pre-clearing via the GUI is planned as a standard feature. 

 

One time I DO see it still being useful s when one has to take any recovery action beyond the standard 'replace a disk' type scenarios.

 

I personally see it as more important than nano as I am quite happy with using vi  :)

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While I agree with most of what is said.

The simple fact is that the majority of unraid users do not drop to command line / SSH.

 

This is not true when it comes to pre-clearing drives.

I understand limetech's position on this. It's been this way for years. I don't have issue with it.

It's easy enough to drop the packages in /boot/extra.

 

Let's be real in that until native pre-clear is part of emhttp, you need to drop to the command line or the array is unusable for hours on end. Plus the fact that the current pre-clear from emhttp leave users blind as to the real health of the drive before adding it to the array.

 

In any case a guide with links or .plg file would suffice.

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...

While I agree with most of what is said.

The simple fact is that the majority of unraid users do not drop to command line / SSH.

 

This is not true when it comes to pre-clearing drives.

I understand limetech's position on this. It's been this way for years. I don't have issue with it.

It's easy enough to drop the packages in /boot/extra.

 

Let's be real in that until native pre-clear is part of emhttp, you need to drop to the command line or the array is unusable for hours on end. Plus the fact that the current pre-clear from emhttp leave users blind as to the real health of the drive before adding it to the array.

 

In any case a guide with links or .plg file would suffice.

I agree with you in this weebo.  I guess my point is that the answer to this is putting pre clear into the webgui, not adding another command line tool.

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I agree with you in this weebo.  I guess my point is that the answer to this is putting pre clear into the webgui, not adding another command line tool.

While I agree with putting the standard tools into the GUI, the fact of the matter is that in extreme cases one has to descend to the command line for certain operations.    As disks get larger the operations one is likely to need to do via the command line are getting progressively longer.  When you combine this with the fact that many people run their systems headless and thus need to use telnet for rare cases where the command line is needed I think that screen becomes a special case.  Still that is my opinion, and as I know how to manually dump the files required for screen into the /boot/extra folder I am not really that concerned in terms of my own use.

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