Run unRAID on another Linux distro??


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I've been working with my Slackware development setup for some time and I am generally pleased.  However, when it comes to programming, my Linux experience is extremely limited (I've mainly tackled business reporting problems & logic in mainframe and Windows environments).  Since all of my "production" systems are working fine and I don't really want to subject the good development system to my inexperience, I am creating a new test system to be my guinea pig and become more familiar with programming/development in the Linux environment.  One such challenge I am interested in is porting unRAID to another Linux distro.  Is there anything in the unRAID  driver programming or the closed source admin software that would make it difficult/impossible to install unRAID on a distribution other than Slackware?

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That's not to say it can't be done.

 

I suspect some of the issues may simply be a lack of "graceful" error handling in emhttp.... a file is not found in the expected location and instead of a message, it just segfaults.  If you got the environment sufficiently modified to resemble Slackware, it may very well work.

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Is it possible to install unraid in vmware workstation and give it direct access to the disks?  That way I can run a more user friendly distribution and let unraid sit in its own little box.

 

I believe this can be done, but you "may" need to boot from one of the 4 virtual IDE hard drives.

I believe that there may be a USB boot issue.

There is another issue relating to SATA drives.

VMware emilates IDE and SCSI drives and unRAID does not handle SCSI drives (even virtual ones).

I think the issue is more an emhttp issue. A person can always compile in the LSI or BUSLOGIC drivers.

emhttp does not scan for, nor add, SCSI drives to the superblock file.

 

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You can do it, but the problem is emhttp, and not the unRAID kernel mods.  emhttp will segfault on other distros, and you don't have the source code for emhttp.

 

 

 

I've managed to get reasonably far with unraid under ubuntu (unbuntu?).

 

md drivers in the running kernel and emhttp runs without segfaulting.

 

The behaviour isn't currently quite correct and I'm currently working my way through straces to figure out what emhttp is doing and looking for.

 

No segfaults so far though!

 

If anyone can give me a clue on emhttp's workflow it might save some time.

 

 

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Wow, can't wait for progress reports on this!

 

I'd love to have unRAID working on my ClarkConnect box (CentsOS 5 now).

 

Or ubuntu....

 

Keep it up and let us know!

 

Cheers!

KermitJr

 

In theory once emhttp's behaviour is known - and presuming it can actually be run feature complete outside slackware I don't see any reason that, at that point, it wouldn't become distribution agnostic.

 

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Boof,

 

I know this is borderline harrassment, but any progress? 

Harass away! :)

 

No, no progress I'm afraid. Mainly due to time.

 

It's likely to be slow progress as well!

 

 

What is the issue with emttp?  I can't find it anywhere? Is it an Unraid only thing?  Open source?  Lime-tech source?

 

/usr/sbin/emhttp

 

It's the 'core' of unraid's userland. It runs the unraid management gui but also (I believe) has the code inside to initialise disks, sort out slots etc etc.

 

It is an unraid only thing developed by Limetech. It's one of the closed source parts of unraid (probably due to the fact it contains the licensing info. Possibly also the disk initialising although I'm guessing that's been replicated as part of preclear.sh)

 

The real issue is that, understandably, it's been coded with a slackware / unraid environment in mind. Therefore most file paths are hardcoded and there is very little debugging info when things go wrong.

 

So basically I'm working through trying to find out what files it's looking for and where. And what format they need to be in (i.e I don't think it likes a shadow'd /etc/passwd).

 

Any chance you can post what you have so far?

 

Really not very much! I'm actually surprised no one has done it before - or posted if they have anyway.

 

- install ubuntu

- grab the unraid md sources from the latest beta

- grab the matching kernel from kernel.org

- recompile the kernel replacing the linux md drivers with unraid

- boot into the new kernel

- copy over emhttpd

- ensure all the libraries (ldd) it needs are installed and symlink where appropriate

- run emhttpd

- trace through either via any output it gives, via /var/log/go or by using strace and work step by step through each stumbling block.

 

Not much to it really, just takes time and patience. Both of which I'll only have in sporadic bursts :)

 

It may never work or, once working, it may be far too sensitive to ubuntu distro updates around it. Time will tell.

 

 

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I wonder from a marketing perspective, if unraid would sell more if it was ubuntu based (Mint 10)

Keep up the hard work guys. I'll be happy to test your install docs when you get them done.

 

I guess the other option is to have a full slackware install. Has anyone setup their unraid server as their HTPC server as well (HDMI out, with full 1080P) right from the unraid server? Dolby Surround sound? I hate to admit it, but I only use Slackware for Unraid.

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  • 1 month later...

Im gonna give this a bump. Im so ready to buy unraid but not being able to install it with Ubuntu or Debian kinda kills it for me. Im trying out flexraid at the moment but it feels unpolished and there is very little documentation for it. My next stop is to try a full Slackware install. Im not very familiar with Slack. Havn't tried since version 6. Debian and Gentoo's package managment systems spoiled me so I never gave Slack a realy go.

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