Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 5th May 2008 17:12 UTC, submitted by Dale Smoker
OpenSolaris 2008.5, the new distribution based on the OpenSolaris operating system, has been released into the wild. This release follows the conventions set by many of the popular Linux distributions, such as being based on a single live CD with installer, but also adds a load of OpenSolaris-specific features such as ZFS, DTrace, Containers, and a new package management system, IPS. OpenSolaris 2008.5 is the fruit of Project Indiana.
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RE[2]: Different Boot Environments
by Matt Giacomini on Tue 6th May 2008 17:38
in reply to "RE: Different Boot Environments"
Member since:2005-07-06
RE[2]: Different Boot Environments
by Arun on Tue 6th May 2008 18:18
in reply to "RE: Different Boot Environments"
Member since:2005-07-07
Christ. This is why you have test environments (not that you can't do this on other systems), regardless of what you can and cannot snapshot on a production system...... I really worry about some people, and some of the people on the OpenSolaris lists are really worrying.
Wow more FUD with no basic understanding.
Yes, it's really lovely that ZFS is detecting some potential corruption that you didn't have when you had a working system before. It's also really lovely that ZFS is silently handling it. You still have to deal with this. The question is, why on Earth do you have that problem now where you didn't before, and why are people seeing the same thing with the same disk controller? Good luck with that one.
Err. Because before they had nothing to detect the silent bit rot and now they do! Duh!.
Roll back to what, exactly?!
How about the first snapshot of a freshly installed system.
ZFS send can send a snapshot to a file and zfs recieve can restore it. You can have this snapshot on a completely different drive. Reinstall and restore from that snapshot. Much faster than setting everything up again. So you can send any number or snapshots to a different disk and maintain known good copies that are free from virii. If the snapshots in the system are not working out restore from the external disk. If you want this disk can be powered of when not in use.
Do you know how far the virus went back? Have you just taken a snapshot of the infected system? How do you know it hasn't affected ZFS itself? Do you know what state the snapshot is in?
None of that invalidates the benefits of ZFS snapshots and would hold true for even NetAPP filers. But the bottom line is such a system was not available for laptops or desktops in such a simple and extensive way.
No. The only way you'll be able to make this work is through an adequate back up system (which snapshots simply cannot replace) with adequate checksumming on a per file and directory basis so you know exactly what has changed and when as a form of IDS.
Even then, it's possible to do much the same thing with LVM snapshots or Volume Shadow Copy.
Even then, it's possible to do much the same thing with LVM snapshots or Volume Shadow Copy.
But ZFS makes that so easy. It tracks the changes when you snapshot, can compress the snapshots and even export it to a file. Let's see you do such a backup that with LVM and ext3. You'll need external tools and more work.
Volume shadow copy doesn't have the ability to export a snapshot or compress a snapshot.
Errr, no, because CVS, SVN or a backup system provide checksumming and diff changes on a per file and directory basis. Unless you make a snapshot for each and every change you don't have that with a snapshot system. If you do, you'll have to allocate a spectacular amount of space to account for divergences.
It's no replacement for a backup system.
It's not a replacement for a backup system but it enhances a backup system substantially. Your argument is it doesn't replace a back system so it is no good is pretty dubious and ignorant.
Edited 2008-05-06 18:19 UTC
RE[3]: Different Boot Environments
by segedunum on Tue 6th May 2008 22:44
in reply to "RE[2]: Different Boot Environments"
Member since:2005-07-06
"Christ. This is why you have test environments....
Wow more FUD with no basic understanding. "
So you don't have any test environments because ZFS is so great? Pffffffff......... That's what I thought, and what I thought when I wrote that comment, and that's the impression some of the OpenSolaris list topics have given me.
Lovely.
Err. Because before they had nothing to detect the silent bit rot and now they do! Duh!.
Errrrr, the problem is that there are people on that list, who are seemingly dumping working systems for ZFS, are encountering corruption issues that they never saw before with no indication of what on Earth caused them (did the move cause it?) or how to solve them now, and a lot of them are using the same drivers. Hmmmmmmm.
But hey, ZFS detected it, right?
ZFS send can send a snapshot to a file and zfs recieve can restore it. You can have this snapshot on a completely different drive. Reinstall and restore from that snapshot. Much faster than setting everything up again.
That's a bare metal image backup, right? This is new and cool because..........? I don't really know of anyone who reinstalls from scratch.
So you can send any number or snapshots to a different disk and maintain known good copies.....
Yep. Already doing it.
But the bottom line is such a system was not available for laptops or desktops in such a simple and extensive way.
It sill isn't. There is ample evidence, especially from the FreeBSD guys, that you will need several gigabytes to run ZFS and take advantage of its features, and once you do it will simply grow unbounded with any job that you give it. Snapshots are also expensive, even with all the block saving features that ZFS has, so again, they need to be used sparingly.
ZFS would have been a pretty good candidate for all those ARM based NAS boxes you can pick up for very reasonable prices. Not going to happen as it is. Does Solaris run on ARM, by the way?
Your argument is it doesn't replace a back system so it is no good is pretty dubious and ignorant.
Not really. Snapshots are great, and being able to manage them is even better. However, going beyond that doesn't replace a backup system as some people seem to think it does, and a great deal of what people think is brilliant about ZFS is regularly being done by lots of people everywhere. ZFS gives you a nicer set of tools and a userland stack to do it, but still.
Within the context of the article and getting people using OpenSolaris though, will ZFS be enough to get people flocking? We'll just have to see.
Edited 2008-05-06 22:45 UTC
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Christ. This is why you have test environments (not that you can't do this on other systems), regardless of what you can and cannot snapshot on a production system...... I really worry about some people, and some of the people on the OpenSolaris lists are really worrying.
Yes, it's really lovely that ZFS is detecting some potential corruption that you didn't have when you had a working system before. It's also really lovely that ZFS is silently handling it. You still have to deal with this. The question is, why on Earth do you have that problem now where you didn't before, and why are people seeing the same thing with the same disk controller? Good luck with that one.
Roll back to what, exactly?! Do you know how far the virus went back? Have you just taken a snapshot of the infected system? How do you know it hasn't affected ZFS itself? Do you know what state the snapshot is in?
No. The only way you'll be able to make this work is through an adequate back up system (which snapshots simply cannot replace) with adequate checksumming on a per file and directory basis so you know exactly what has changed and when as a form of IDS.
Even then, it's possible to do much the same thing with LVM snapshots or Volume Shadow Copy.
Errr, no, because CVS, SVN or a backup system provide checksumming and diff changes on a per file and directory basis. Unless you make a snapshot for each and every change you don't have that with a snapshot system. If you do, you'll have to allocate a spectacular amount of space to account for divergences.
It's no replacement for a backup system.