Napp-It or ZFS alternative?

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

F1ydave

Member
Mar 9, 2014
137
21
18
What is everyone using these days for a zfs?

I am running Esxi 5.5u2, 4 vm's currently.

Build: Esxi 5.5u2
supermicro x10slh-f-o
32 gb ECC ram
lsi 9271-8
4 - 1tb wd velociraptors latest LSI firmware, not IT mode (raid 10) (will be zfs)
4 -4tb wd red's (jbod - all compressed backups to one red using Nakivo VM)
NAS -backup Terastation Pro 1.36 tb (I will be upgrading this soon)

A friend of mine runs unraid with his lsi passthrough and he loves it. I want something a bit more secure.

I have been trying to install Napp-It-All in One with no luck. The vmx adds to Esxi, but when I make the recommended changes from the tutorial it gives me some pipe error in the open console (I dont recall what it is exactly). All the work arounds I googled are for Esxi 5.1 don't even exist for a fixable option in 5.5u2. I have tried this 7 times, 1 time it did power up, but was riddled with warnings from OI/Omni ISO.

I downloaded Omni OS and OpenIndiana, but haven't had time to test the ISO's yet.

Any suggestions? Ideas? Better solutions?
 

HellDiverUK

Active Member
Jul 16, 2014
290
52
28
47
Why not try Napp-It on Linux? I got it working in no time on Debian. Set up Debian, add ZoL, then add Napp-It.
 

gea

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2010
3,141
1,184
113
DE
What is everyone using these days for a zfs?

I am running Esxi 5.5u2, 4 vm's currently.

Build: Esxi 5.5u2
supermicro x10slh-f-o
32 gb ECC ram
lsi 9271-8
4 - 1tb wd velociraptors latest LSI firmware, not IT mode (raid 10) (will be zfs)
4 -4tb wd red's (jbod - all compressed backups to one red using Nakivo VM)
NAS -backup Terastation Pro 1.36 tb (I will be upgrading this soon)

A friend of mine runs unraid with his lsi passthrough and he loves it. I want something a bit more secure.

I have been trying to install Napp-It-All in One with no luck. The vmx adds to Esxi, but when I make the recommended changes from the tutorial it gives me some pipe error in the open console (I dont recall what it is exactly). All the work arounds I googled are for Esxi 5.1 don't even exist for a fixable option in 5.5u2. I have tried this 7 times, 1 time it did power up, but was riddled with warnings from OI/Omni ISO.

I downloaded Omni OS and OpenIndiana, but haven't had time to test the ISO's yet.

Any suggestions? Ideas? Better solutions?
You have two options to setup napp-it on OmniOS under ESXi
1.
- download the ESXi appliance from napp-it.org, unzip and upload to your local datastore. napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana, Solaris and Linux : Downloads
- import the VM (right click on the .vmx file with the ESXi filebrowser)
- start the VM
- on console enter ifconfig -a (shows ip adresses, need dhcp)
- login to napp-it, enter http://serverip:81 in your browser

2.
manual setup
- download OmniOS ISO and upload to your datastore
- create a new VM (Solaris 10-64) , assign the ISO to your virtual DVD, boot
- setup OmniOS. After first boot, setup IP manually, see napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana, Solaris and Linux : OmniOS
- run napp-it installer (root at console)
wget -O - napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana, Solaris and Linux :Downloads | perl
- reset root pw
- login to napp-it, enter http://serverip:81 in your browser

- optionally add vmware tools

maybe you have "combined both setups"

about your hardware:
Mainboard is perfect only your raidcontroller is quite bad for ZFS
because ZFS should have full control over disks with a software raid.
While you can use hardware raid 5/6 with ZFS and ZFS is able to detect
errors in such a config, it is not able to repair.

In any case, do not virtualize storage hardware, passthrough the controller
to your storage OS
 
Last edited:

F1ydave

Member
Mar 9, 2014
137
21
18
You have two options to setup napp-it on OmniOS under ESXi
1.
- download the ESXi appliance from napp-it.org, unzip and upload to your local datastore. napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana, Solaris and Linux : Downloads
- import the VM (right click on the .vmx file with the ESXi filebrowser)
- start the VM
- on console enter ifconfig -a (shows ip adresses, need dhcp)
- login to napp-it, enter http://serverip:81 in your browser

2.
manual setup
- download OmniOS ISO and upload to your datastore
- create a new VM (Solaris 10-64) , assign the ISO to your virtual DVD, boot
- setup OmniOS. After first boot, setup IP manually, see napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana, Solaris and Linux : OmniOS
- run napp-it installer (root at console)
wget -O - napp-it // webbased ZFS NAS/SAN appliance for OmniOS, OpenIndiana, Solaris and Linux :Downloads | perl
- reset root pw
- login to napp-it, enter http://serverip:81 in your browser

- optionally add vmware tools

maybe you have "combined both setups"

about your hardware:
Mainboard is perfect only your raidcontroller is quite bad for ZFS
because ZFS should have full control over disks with a software raid.
While you can use hardware raid 5/6 with ZFS and ZFS is able to detect
errors in such a config, it is not able to repair.

In any case, do not virtualize storage hardware, passthrough the controller
to your storage OS
Option 1 is what I tried a bunch of times. I could try it without making any changes with 1 core...

Option 2 is what I was going to do next.

My plan was to passthrough the controller. Should I clear my raid 10 from the controller or does it not make a difference at this point? Different firmware help? I can always get another card and sell this one or pop it into a Lenovo Thinkserver TS140 I have laying around. I have been thinking about adding a 'plex media server' at my office to take advantage of my upload speeds to sync with a few friends.
 

gea

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2010
3,141
1,184
113
DE
A typical AIO configuration:

- a 32GB+ bootdisk that holds ESXi and OmniOS on the local datastore
- a raidless HBA (my favourites are the LSI 9207 or the older LSI 9211/IBM 1015 flashed to IT mode)
- The HBA is set t0 pass-through to OmniOS for best performance and reliability

- You then create two pools
pool1: high performance SSD pool to hold the VMs, ex a mirror or two SSDs
pool2: high capacity pool, ex a raid-Z2 from normal disks for regular fileservices and backup
 

F1ydave

Member
Mar 9, 2014
137
21
18
A typical AIO configuration:

- a 32GB+ bootdisk that holds ESXi and OmniOS on the local datastore
- a raidless HBA (my favourites are the LSI 9207 or the older LSI 9211/IBM 1015 flashed to IT mode)
- The HBA is set t0 pass-through to OmniOS for best performance and reliability

- You then create two pools
pool1: high performance SSD pool to hold the VMs, ex a mirror or two SSDs
pool2: high capacity pool, ex a raid-Z2 from normal disks for regular fileservices and backup

I was able to successfully install Omni on a vm and get NAPP it to install. Unfortunately to get it to work, I couldnt add the raid card to vm. I am going to power down the server tonight, delete the array and see if maybe that will allow the card to passthough.
 

gea

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2010
3,141
1,184
113
DE
have you
- enabled vt-d in the bios of the mainboard
- marked the controller as a pass-through device (vsphere configuration, advanced settings)
followed by a ESXi reboot
- added the controller to the VM as a PCI device
 

F1ydave

Member
Mar 9, 2014
137
21
18
have you
- enabled vt-d in the bios of the mainboard
- marked the controller as a pass-through device (vsphere configuration, advanced settings)
followed by a ESXi reboot
- added the controller to the VM as a PCI device
yes I have done all of this.

I just added passthrough pci again with my custom install. Started Omni - got a few 'mr_sas' warnings - could not initialize the low level driver, - mrsas_attach() return failure instance_num 0

it also linked to an EVENT-ID: ZFS-8000-8A

I have no idea what that is in reference too, I have no pools/data on the array.
 
Last edited:

gea

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2010
3,141
1,184
113
DE
This more than a warning. You have checksum errors and corrupted data.
I would expect a hardwareproblem (RAM, Power, Controller) or a problem
with the LSI 9271 (not the best option for ZFS) or its driver

I would
- create some virtual disks under ESXi, build a pool on them and do some tests
to check overall health

or
do a OmniOS barbone setup on Sata/ AHCI only

If this is stable, try to use another controller like a LSI 9211/ IBM 1015 (flashed with IT firmware)
or an LSI 9207 or use RDM/ Raw disk mapping to pass single disks without a dedicated HBA.