Barebones Lenny NAS Server Install dropping Samba every 24Hrs


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Thread: Barebones Lenny NAS Server Install dropping Samba every 24Hrs

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Posts
    11

    Question Barebones Lenny NAS Server Install dropping Samba every 24Hrs

    I built a server for just NAS duty in May running a super-barebones netinstall of Lenny. Lenny running off a 2GB CF card via Addonics CF to SATA adapter. Software Raid5 of 3 WesternDigital 750GB GPs via Webmin's mdadm.

    Everything been running just brilliantly, but I recently move the server to a new room a couple weeks ago or so. A few days ago I started having problems with the server. I'll go to bed with samba sharing working and next time I check sometime the next evening it's down again.

    I can ssh into it no problem, but Webmin throws an error:
    Failed to create temp directory /tmp/.webmin

    Clicking on Linux RAID in Hardware in Webmin errors:
    Failed to open /etc/webmin/raid/mode for writing : Bad file descriptor


    At first I was scared about my raid data, but I'm browsing it via ssh as I post. I've tried restarting samba, but after running the following I was still not able to access my share (from more than one location):
    mynashost:/etc/init.d# ./samba restart
    Stopping Samba daemons: nmbdrm: cannot remove `/var/run/samba/nmbd.pid': Read-only file system
    smbdrm: cannot remove `/var/run/samba/smbd.pid': Read-only file system
    .
    Starting Samba daemons: nmbd smbd.
    mynashost:/etc/init.d#


    After a reboot of the server all is well. But after having to do this the last few nights I figured it was time to get some help. I just rebooted it and sure enough it's working now again. Unfortunately I didn't think until now of trying to mount via nfs as I was never on one of my Linux boxen at the time of noticing the problem.


    Edit: After posting the above and the reboot for return of functionality I tried a security-only apt-get upgrade (apt-get failed to work before reboot iirc. I'll post the error if/when the server go bonkers again):
    #deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main
    mynashost:/etc/apt# apt-get update
    Get:1 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release.gpg [189B]
    Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Translation-en_US
    Get:2 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release [40.7kB]
    Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex
    Get:3 http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages [220kB]
    Fetched 261kB in 1s (261kB/s)
    Reading package lists... Done
    nashost:/etc/apt# apt-get upgrade
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information... Done
    The following packages have been kept back:
    libldap-2.4-2 samba samba-common
    0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
    mynashost:/etc/apt#

    Again, this install is from May so it was a beta install. Perhaps I should do a distroupgrade?! A terrifying proposition for me for my NAS data server.

    Thanks,
    DrCR

    ________________
    Gigabyte P35 something, Intel Wolfdale, 2x2GB Muskin DDR2 800
    Adata 2GB CF, Addonics CF to SATA, 3xWD7500AACS GPs
    Barebones Lenny + Webmin. No Swap
    Last edited by DrCR; 09-09-2008 at 10:13 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
    Posts
    799
    I am not nearly familiar enough with either Lenny or webmin to have any idea what the problem is, but I am curious why you're using Lenny for a simple file server.

    I have traditionally always used Debian Stable for any file server. A couple weeks ago, though, I did have a compelling reason to switch to Lenny--I had read about aufs and I really wanted to use it for my file server (it's not in Etch). I figured that since Lenny has been frozen, it's "close enough" to Stable for me to jump. Plus, we're talking a simple file server. If I had any problems with Lenny, I could always just re-install a simple Etch install from scratch.

    I like keeping a simple file server nice and simple, so a complete reinstall is not a scary task. So I've never used webmin and the one time I used mdadm I later regretted it (didn't lose any data, but it was just plain annoying to switch back to normal partitions).

    If you're not comfortable with a fresh re-install of your main file server, then you should probably do something about that. My solution was to simplify and reduce "technologies" like mdadm or lvm. Your solution, probably, should be to become comfortable with mdadm by setting up a "kickaround" system and kicking it to failure and back a few times.

    Basically, cobble together three old hard drives or something so you can more or less duplicate the functionality of your current server. They don't need to be huge 750gig drives; even ancient 1gig clunkers will do. Then you can experiment with simulating a drive failure or a clean re-install of the OS partition.

    If you familiarize yourself with failure and recovery on a kickaround system, then you won't need to be so scared about working on your "live" system.
    Isaac Kuo, ICQ 29055726 or Yahoo mechdan

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Posts
    11
    Hardware was latest gen in May so I went with Lenny. I was going to go the FreeNAS route initially but my hardware was too new for it. I do indeed need to get more comfortable with the system. I'm "rsnapshotting" the real vital data to an external HDD from time to time though. Do note the machine has been rock solid since May til this point.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Posts
    11
    A friend of mine mentioned that the partition may be erroring and then being remounted in read-only mode. My theory is that an OS on a ReiserFSed CF card only lasts ~3months before the CF card's R/W limit is reached -- perhaps this wouldn't be such a problem with a smart, r/w balancing, CF controller.

    Just got a WD6400AAKS in. Serious overkill for a 500MB OS install, but should do the trick for years to come. Got started on a lenny-beta2 install. Will be configing it shortly.

    DrCR

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