NAS #3 :: Reboots and forcing the disks to the correct shares

October 7th, 2009 No comments »

One area of concern when dealing with USB disk drives is the association and assignment of the disk to a device name.If not properly aligned, this can cause havoc on your shares, permissions, and data.

When you expect /dev/sdb1 to be your 1 TB Western Digital drive but the mapping of the devices causes the /dev/sdb1 to be your 320 GB Seagate, what you end up with is data from disk A being presented to other disk shares. This can result in your BACKUP share showing up as an expected media or apps share.

In order to align this within my NAS and have some expected results, I need to move away from DEVICE IDs and use something more unique. Like the UUID for the disk itself

Within Ubuntu, the command blkid shows information about the disk devices. This includes the UUID, the label, and the type.Here’s some output:

@nasserver:~$ blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="7524d180-a105-4428-a56c-3128c73684a1"
/dev/sda2: UUID="15a4483b-373e-45c0-80ff-b1588c71bff5"
/dev/sda3: UUID="186C12564DB71A6D"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="BA1A9D7A1A9D347B" LABEL="1TB_DRIVE"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="0C229D2C229D1C30" LABEL="400GB_Testing" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdd1: UUID="88e94acd-5645-4f36-b291-5b74890f2c35" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sde1: UUID="BC5A275D5A271424" LABEL="500GB"

The changes that are necessary in the /etc/fstab file looks like this:

UUID=186C12564DB71A6D /media/virts  ntfs  suid,dev,defaults,umask=007,gid=46,exec,nls=utf8  0  0
UUID=BA1A9D7A1A9D347B /media/1tbroot ntfs  suid,dev,defaults,umask=007,gid=46,exec,nls=utf8  0  0
UUID=BC5A275D5A271424 /media/500GB ntfs  suid,dev,defaults,umask=007,gid=46,exec,nls=utf8  0  0
UUID=88e94acd-5645-4f36-b291-5b74890f2c35 /media/Music          ext3  relatime

What this leaves us with is the ability to reliably mount the correct UUID to the mount point each time. The Samba configuration can then make use of the mount point and the Windows share can be named whatever through the Samba configuration.

AIX and authentication

October 1st, 2009 No comments »

I spent the last 2 hours trying to figure out why I was getting prompted when I SU’d from root to another ID.

In the /etc/security/login.cfg, the authentication was set to PAM_AUTH instead of STD_AUTH.

Quick change and PRESTO! I now can SU to an ID from root without being prompted for the user’s password.

Note: this may be specific to AIX 5.3 with the build I have use of at work. There are other authentication options, PAM configurations, and 3rd party applications in play.

FF :: Week 3 Round Up

September 30th, 2009 No comments »

I have three teams in as many leagues.

My scores, and the scores of the other teams, in line.

What the heck am I doing wrong?!?!

Change your perception Lesson #1: “… Minutes Remaining”

September 23rd, 2009 No comments »
pc waiting

pc waiting

 

Old Thought Process

In the past my perception has been that the “XX Minutes Remaining” on a Windows dialog box was an acknowledgement of work requested and the estimation of the time the PC needs to complete said task.

New Perception

The “XX Minutes Remaining” is truly based on a non-linear timer that hasn’t really started yet. And while there may be movement in either direction with an increase or decrease to the overall estimation for completing you request, the submission is truly that – a _request_.  When the dialog box goes away, that’s when you know I finished your _request_. Don’t push me… or your _request_ will be faulted.

Another new experimental mod from Cyanogen

September 20th, 2009 No comments »

I downloaded and ran the .11.1 experimental ROM available from cyanogenmod.com

I ran into the same issues but some new ones cropped up:

  • Browser launch would generate a FC. It never opened.
  • The “end” (red) button would sometimes work… the other buttons would light up when I would hit the button, but it didn’t do anything – sometimes

Back to 4.04

NAS #2 – Getting Jinzora2 installed and running

September 20th, 2009 No comments »

Through the course of getting my NAS squared away, the ability to queue and play music over my network was important. This includes handheld devices, laptops, and other networked computers.

I searched around and found Jinzora2 has pretty much everything I wanted.

  • Web based and clean interface
  • Random and dedicated playlist
  • Be able to serve up playlists for individuals
  • User specific settings and authentication
  • Upload capable

Jinzora gave me everything I wanted.

The setup, management, and usability of this web-based application are pretty slick. No issues in getting the application downloaded or installed. Also, the configuration was pretty straight forward. In all honesty, the only issue I encountered was when I didn’t RTFM and set my server as a jukebox… not what I wanted.

When setting Jinzora up as a jukebox, the system is going to attempt to connect to the MPD. If this doesn’t exist, then you get errors on the web interface revolving around fsocketopen failing. Since the port is not there for the app to connect, the errors occur. So – if you are not going to run the application on a server/workstation that isn’t going to natively play music, don’t enable the jukebox.

One thing I will be looking forward to is remote control of the jukebox – if I ever get a sound device and source situated on the server. I would love to remote control my jukebox with my G1 while hanging out by the bonfire.

Home grown NAS – #1

September 13th, 2009 No comments »

I setup an old laptop with Ubuntu 9.04 Server in order to connect my printer and some USB external drives as a NAS (sort of).

 

So far, I have:

  • Dell D600 laptop
  • 1.7 TB of total disk space
  • Webmin 1.48 installed
  • An HP F4180 – Wired and wireless: This is printer shows up as an available resource

So far, so good. Next things to work on – may include a reimage to the laptop:

  • Sleep for the USB drives
  • Better control through webmin for NTFS partitions (one drive just keeps flaking out)
  • Static drive mapping on NFS restart (the USB disks will sometimes mount out of order…this creates havoc for media vs. backups)
  • Printer drivers for my Vista boxes from the “NFS/NAS” server
  • Samba/NAS web interface for upload/download – secured for remote connections (i.e. DynDNS.org)

Eventually…

Windshield mount

September 13th, 2009 No comments »

Found a windshield mount on ebay for $6.00 with FS. I figured this would be worth $6.

Post back when it comes in…

G1 screen protectors

September 13th, 2009 No comments »

 

Just picked up 3x of these G1 protectors for $0.69 with free shipping… I’ll update how well they work.

I DOUBT THIS WILL STILL BE AROUND

FF :: Week 1 – OMG!!!!

September 13th, 2009 No comments »

[[ 6:45 PM ]]

So far – damn, Adrian Peterson is good. Damn good… but damn, for FF – he killed me in 1 league but saved me in another (so far).

 

[[8:10 PM]]

I am actually “-1″ with Cutler right now… 3 passes in a row to GB players. Damn it!

 

[[8:52 PM]]

I am losing ground with Cutler.. -2 now… damn!

 

[9:00 PM]]

Going into half-time… ugh