Table of Contents
This Howto provides a description about the packages and configurations to use Bering-uClibc as a NAS (Network-Attached Storage) and/or SAN (Storage Area Network) solution.
To be ready for this special usage, Bering-uClibc versions 3.0 and above have DMA enabled by default when available. This will speedup harddisk performance considerably.
The following basic packages are recommended to build a NAS or SAN solution:
hdsupp.lrp to setup and maintain
harddisks |
hdspind.lrp and hddma.lrp with some
helper scripts. |
mdadm.lrp to manage Linux Software RAID
arrays (http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO.html) |
smartd.lrp to monitor the integrity of
the harddisks (http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/) |
hdsupp.lrp currently contains the following
programs: badblocks, e2fsck,
e2label, fdisk,
hdparm, syslinux,
tune2fs, dosfsck,
mke2fs, mkdosfs,
mkfs.ext2, mkfs.ext3,
mkfs.msdos, mkfs.vfat,
mkswap, swapoff,
swapon, fsck,
fsck.ext2, fsck.ext3,
fsck.msdos, fsck.vfat and
losetup.
hdspindn.lrp is a simple script package which
put the harddisk(s) in standby mode using hdparm which is available in
the hdsupp package.
hddma.lrp is a simple script package which
forces harddisk(s) in dma mode when it's not automatically recognised or
a when a specific controller kernel module is necessary.
hddma.lrp also uses the hdparm program from the
hdsupp package.
For a NAS solution additional packages are recommended:
samba.lrp (or samba22.lrp) for SMB
support |
vsftpd.lrp is a small and secure ftp
daemon |
The standard samba package is based on samba version 2.0.10a, is small and will do in most cases. The samba22 package is based on samba version 2.2.12, which has more options, but is also much bigger.
Internet SCSI (iSCSI) is an official standard ratified on February 11, 2003 by the Internet Engineering Task Force that allows the use of the SCSI protocol over TCP/IP networks. iSCSI is a transport layer protocol in the SCSI-3 specifications framework. An iSCSI target is the server piece of an iSCSI SAN. The client piece/driver is called "initiator".
The iSCSI protocol uses TCP/IP for its data transfer. Unlike other network storage protocols, such as Fibre Channel (which is the foundation of most SANs), it requires only the simple and ubiquitous Ethernet interface (or any other TCP/IP-capable network) to operate. This enables low-cost centralization of storage without all of the usual expense and incompatibility normally associated with Fibre Channel storage area networks.
The SAN solution uses iSCSI extensively and recommends:
iscsid.lrp - an iscsi target
daemon. |
The iscsi target daemon can be used, together with an iscsi
initiator on a host, as a SAN solution. The iscsi target daemon supports
block devices, regular files, LVM and RAID. It uses the following kernel
modules which are available in the kernel tarball:
iscsi_trgt.o and
fileio.o.
An example iscsi target configuration (more information in the ietd.conf file) where the block device /dev/hdc is used:
############################################################ User joe secret # Targets definitions start with "Target" and the target name. # The target name must be a globally unique name, the iSCSI # standard defines the "iSCSI Qualified Name" as follows: # # iqn.yyyy-mm.<reversed domain name>[:identifier] # # "yyyy-mm" is the date at which the domain is valid and the identifier # is freely selectable. For further details please check the iSCSI spec. Target iqn.2006-08.network.private:storage.disk1 # Users, who can access this target # (no users means anyone can access the target) User joe secret # Lun definition Lun 0 /dev/hdc fileio ############################################################
To use a regular file, it first has to be created on the target disk with dd (this example assumes you mounted the harddisk under /home):
dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/nas.img bs=4k count=<some very big number>
Where the resulting size is count*bs.
The Lun definition would look like this:
Lun 0 /home/nas.img fileio
Some iscsi clients (initiators): Windows:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/storage/iscsi/default.mspx
Linux:
http://unh-iscsi.sourceforge.net
http://linux-iscsi.sourceforge.net
http://www.open-iscsi.org Other iscsi links:
http://cuddletech.com/articles/iscsi/index.html
Additional information: