525 based Supermicro, Untangle, and dedicated SATA RAID card - Please Read.

[G-Funk]

Greetings again everyone ......

First, from my previous (and first ) post on this forum I wound up blowing an enormous amount of time trying to install Untangle on an all Intel system. All USB, no PS/2 - and in the end I did a test with a 4g RAM - 525 Supermicro - and the install from start to finish to about 15 to 17 minutes and Untangle loaded right up.

So I'm going with a 525 based supermicro with 4gb of RAM. As many of you know the Supermicro also contains dual GB NICs ....... It also contains a riser card for one PCI-E card.

Also - per Untangle, specs for having 50 to 150 users are, a single dual core processor and 2gb of RAM (or greater). Mine has 4gb ..... Just an FYI

Anyhow - my boss is being rather stubborn with wanting to go with a mirrored RAID setup on the Supermicro. I have read / researched / and been told even on this forum that RAIDs can be problematic with Linux.

So, does anyone know of a PCI-E SATA Raid controller just to do RAID 1, that is compatible with Untangle?

A software based RAID would also be acceptable, though I would prefer hardware based.

Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks bunches .....

G.

[sky-knight]

Unless you want to dig into kernel modules and make a guess, you're in for a hard life.

It is possible to create a software mirror using the advanced installer. But the configuration and maintenance of it isn't supported. I made a youtube about a test setup I did a while ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCF9...w&feature=plcp

Now, in this video I did NOT mirror the swap partitions. I haven't found a good answer on the theory of a Linux mirror. However, you should be aware that it is possible that if you do not mirror the swap partition, the system may kernel panic in the event of a drive failure.

Also, recovery of a failed mirror will require the use of the mdadm command line tool, as well as manual partitioning of a replacement drive. This approach is "better" than hardware mirrors in my opinion because they are controller independent. The filesystems can be read by any Linux operating system. While the software mirror does impose a performance penalty, with Untangle there isn't a noticeable difference under normal operation. You will feel it a bit when reports generate.

In short, while I did all this I never had the time to test the configuration fully to get all the documentation built to support it. You're welcome to do the digging and use it if you wish, but in my opinion mirroring Untangle is overkill. I've had far too many cases where a drive fails on a mirror and locks the controller, causing the device to fail anyway. If you have a purchased support package with Untangle, the untangle server maintains backups of its configuration in the Untangle cloud. This means restoring the server takes nothing more than install Untangle, download backup, move sub, install modules, restore backup. This process takes about 30min to complete if you know how to do it. The same 30min it will take to pull the drive, fix the sata bus, redirect the BIOS and reboot.

If you want hardware redundancy, get a second drive and use clonezilla to image the installation once you have it configured. As long as you maintain the images after each upgrade restoring a fully functional server is even easier.

RAID, isn't worth the effort. There are simply easier ways to deal with drive failure in Untangle's case.

[G-Funk]

Unless you want to dig into kernel modules and make a guess, you're in for a hard life.

It is possible to create a software mirror using the advanced installer. But the configuration and maintenance of it isn't supported. I made a youtube about a test setup I did a while ago

Now, in this video I did NOT mirror the swap partitions. I haven't found a good answer on the theory of a Linux mirror. However, you should be aware that it is possible that if you do not mirror the swap partition, the system may kernel panic in the event of a drive failure.

Also, recovery of a failed mirror will require the use of the mdadm command line tool, as well as manual partitioning of a replacement drive. This approach is "better" than hardware mirrors in my opinion because they are controller independent. The filesystems can be read by any Linux operating system. While the software mirror does impose a performance penalty, with Untangle there isn't a noticeable difference under normal operation. You will feel it a bit when reports generate.

In short, while I did all this I never had the time to test the configuration fully to get all the documentation built to support it. You're welcome to do the digging and use it if you wish, but in my opinion mirroring Untangle is overkill. I've had far too many cases where a drive fails on a mirror and locks the controller, causing the device to fail anyway. If you have a purchased support package with Untangle, the untangle server maintains backups of its configuration in the Untangle cloud. This means restoring the server takes nothing more than install Untangle, download backup, move sub, install modules, restore backup. This process takes about 30min to complete if you know how to do it. The same 30min it will take to pull the drive, fix the sata bus, redirect the BIOS and reboot.

If you want hardware redundancy, get a second drive and use clonezilla to image the installation once you have it configured. As long as you maintain the images after each upgrade restoring a fully functional server is even easier.

RAID, isn't worth the effort. There are simply easier ways to deal with drive failure in Untangle's case.

Thank you for such an in depth reply. I've convinced my boss. We're going to go with dual drives in the unit to image from the primary to the secondary drive using clonezilla.

Again, thank you much!

G.

[agit8or]

I have used Dell Perc (LSI) 4, 5, and 6 raid controllers on several installs. They have all worked without issue and without loading a driver. One unit has even had a successful drive failure and replacement.

[sky-knight]

LSI controllers based on the acquired 3ware chipsets are all usually workable.

It's just that the current stuff isn't supported in Lenny... so it's very easy to get a card that doesn't cooperate. We've had good luck with 3ware stuff in the past, including installing the debian management software to manage the drives and get alerts and such.

Thanks for pointing that out agit8or, I had meant to put that detail in my response and got distracted. My citrix server just rebooted itself for no apparent reason. =/

[proactivens]

Simple f'n question.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816116075

Simple f'n answer. 3ware cards work out of the box, the driver is in the kernel. The management software is dead easy to install too.

[agit8or]

Another vote for 3ware. I agree, they do work great, and the management tools are nice. We have one or two servers in our racks with 9650's and even an old Asterisk box with an 8006.

[G-Funk]

Great ....... just all go and confuse me guys ........

G.

[sky-knight]

Well you asked, and we delivered!

You got both halves of Nexgen, and some more. Jim has more familiarity with the hardware raid in Linux, and I keep forgetting about the 3ware cards.

I'm just not sure how that works with the LSI buy out, and the new product lines coming. I'm assuming older cards work, and newer cards don't at this point.

[wharfratjoe]

Simple f'n question.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816116075

Simple f'n answer. 3ware cards work out of the box, the driver is in the kernel. The management software is dead easy to install too.

Cool! I was looking for a raid card for my son's video/gaming box (win7, have to see if he will look at using http://ubuntustudio.org/) and bingo Jim posts one. Nice! Thanks! Maybe one of these days I will even get around to setting up a UT box with Raid