Is using the stop button in unMenu safer than the stop button in the default unraid management console?

 

I was running 8 instances of preclear - probably too many in retrospect, and when they finished I wanted to shutdown because one of them failed and I wanted to pull that drive out.  So I went to the default console, hit stop (all telnet windows were closed) and it just said "stopping..." for like an hour.  I finally telneted in and typed powerdown and I heard a beep in the case, but it never powered down.  Eventually I just had to hold the power button down and that worked.

 

But of course, I was forced to do a parity check upon reboot.  Everything is ok now, but I'd like to be able to avoid such a problem in the future.  Will using the unMenu stop button help, and/or should I be using the ls-R hack?  Any other suggestions?

 

Thanks

Is using the stop button in unMenu safer than the stop button in the default unraid management console?

 

I was running 8 instances of preclear - probably too many in retrospect, and when they finished I wanted to shutdown because one of them failed and I wanted to pull that drive out.  So I went to the default console, hit stop (all telnet windows were closed) and it just said "stopping..." for like an hour.  I finally telneted in and typed powerdown and I heard a beep in the case, but it never powered down.  Eventually I just had to hold the power button down and that worked.

 

But of course, I was forced to do a parity check upon reboot.  Everything is ok now, but I'd like to be able to avoid such a problem in the future.  Will using the unMenu stop button help, and/or should I be using the ls-R hack?  Any other suggestions?

 

Thanks

The "Stop" button on the stock unRAID console will say "stopping..." until you refresh the browser.  Each time you refresh the browser it will show you updated status.  The stock unRAID button will NOT stop the array if any of the assigned disks are busy.  (Busy = an open file, or a disk being used as the current directory by a process.)  If you "cd to /mnt/disk1" your telnet session will be referencing the disk as its current directory, and it will not be able to un-mount the disk, and the array will not stop until you terminate the telnet session or change directory off of the disk.

 

lime-technology is taking the conservative approach... it will not terminate a process referencing a disk. It will wait (forever) for it to terminate (or for you to terminate the process yourself)

 

The unMENU "Stop" button will send termination signals to process running on the disks.  It will subsequently terminate them forcibly if needed prior to stopping the array.  If you are running add-on processes referencing the disks in the assigned array, you must stop them before Stopping the array.  the unMENU button assumes you really want to stop the server and will kill running processes at the possible cost of a partial file transfer, etc. (It will not wait for it to complete)

 

The "Stop" button in unMENU 1.2 was not effective since lime-technology made some changes on recent versions of unRAID. 

The stop button in unMENU 1.3 is effective.  You can find unMENU 1.3 here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5568.0

 

Joe L.

Thank you Joe.  I of course refreshed the stock unraid page several times and during that hour it continually said "Stopping...", so I guess it really would have taken forever

 

Then I remembered something about the unMenu stop feature being better, so I tried to do that but it wouldn't even load up tower:8080 anymore.  So in case this ever happens again and I forget to use unMenu stop, do you know what telnet command the unMenu stop executes so I can execute that manually if I am locked out of unMenu again?

 

Anyway, thanks for the help and I'll update my unMenu to 1.3, I have 1.2 right now.

 

Thanks

Thank you Joe.  I of course refreshed the stock unraid page several times and during that hour it continually said "Stopping...", so I guess it really would have taken forever

 

Then I remembered something about the unMenu stop feature being better, so I tried to do that but it wouldn't even load up tower:8080 anymore.  So in case this ever happens again and I forget to use unMenu stop, do you know what telnet command the unMenu stop executes so I can execute that manually if I am locked out of unMenu again?

 

Anyway, thanks for the help and I'll update my unMenu to 1.3, I have 1.2 right now.

 

Thanks

unMENU executes a whole series of commands to stop the array.  It would be nice if it was a single command, but it is not.

 

If you install the "powerdown" add-on, from the Package-Manager page in unMENU, you can get it to stop gracefully with a single command.

Just be sure to type the full path to the powerdown command as:

/sbin/powerdown

If you do not use the full path you might get the lime-tech powerdown command instead, and some have reported it does not gracefully shut down.

 

Joe L.

Thank you very much!  I upgraded to 1.3 unMenu.  And it makes sense why powerdown didn't work, I only ran 'powerdown'.  I should be able to handle issues like this from now on   I'll use unMenu to stop the array and the stock to start it and if need be I'll run the /sbin/powerdown command.

I've typed reboot and even shutdown at the command line prompt.  Am I supposed to be running the powerdown instead?

I've typed reboot and even shutdown at the command line prompt.  Am I supposed to be running the powerdown instead?

Neither reboot or shutdown will stop the unRAID array cleanly.  Either is fine if the array is already stopped.

 

The /sbin/powerdown script is designed to cleanly stop the array and terminate any processes accessing the disks.  The only thing it will not do (as far as I know) is deal with loop mounted file systems.

 

If you just type "powerdown" (without giving the full path) you will get by default the script recently added by lime-technology which basically presses the Power-Down button on the management console.  (The one that is not normally even visible if the array is started)

 

Because of that, at least one user reported that the array was powered down, but not stopped cleanly when they used the command lime-technology provided.

 

If you do not stop the array cleanly, you will be faced with a full parity check upon power up.

 

It is strongly suggested you install the powerdown add-on, and invoke it as /sbin/powerdown if you elect to shut the array down via telnet.

 

Joe L.

If you just type "powerdown" (without giving the full path) you will get by default the script recently added by lime-technology which basically presses the Power-Down button on the management console.  (The one that is not normally even visible if the array is started)

[...]

It is strongly suggested you install the powerdown add-on, and invoke it as /sbin/powerdown if you elect to shut the array down via telnet.

 

And this is exactly why I've suggested that Weebo's powerdown package should be renaming the stock powerdown to old_powerdown or something, to avoid all these countless confusions.

 

If you just type "powerdown" (without giving the full path) you will get by default the script recently added by lime-technology which basically presses the Power-Down button on the management console.  (The one that is not normally even visible if the array is started)

[...]

It is strongly suggested you install the powerdown add-on, and invoke it as /sbin/powerdown if you elect to shut the array down via telnet.

 

And this is exactly why I've suggested that Weebo's powerdown package should be renaming the stock powerdown to old_powerdown or something, to avoid all these countless confusions.

 

When installed via the new 1.3 version of unMENU I do this:

[ -f /usr/local/sbin/powerdown ] && mv /usr/local/sbin/powerdown /usr/local/sbin/unraid_powerdown

The lime-tech supplied command that uses wget to press the power button on the management web-page is renamed to unraid_powerdown

When installed via the new 1.3 version of unMENU I do this:

[ -f /usr/local/sbin/powerdown ] && mv /usr/local/sbin/powerdown /usr/local/sbin/unraid_powerdown

 

I too do a similar thing myself. 

But I think it is only proper if the installer of the powerdown package does the the renaming.

 

When installed via the new 1.3 version of unMENU I do this:

[ -f /usr/local/sbin/powerdown ] && mv /usr/local/sbin/powerdown /usr/local/sbin/unraid_powerdown

 

I too do a similar thing myself. 

But I think it is only proper if the installer of the powerdown package does the the renaming.

 

I agree