OmniOS/OpenIndiana running from Thumb Drive

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

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
I have decided I want to switch away from FreeNAS for my ZFS storage due to the fact that even though there is a CrashPlan plugin, it does not work. Being that my wife will be scanning all her family pictures and storing them on our server I think its important to easily back them up somewhere else.

What do I need to keep in mind when installing OmniOS/OpenIndiana to a thumb drive (well, two in a mirror) + installing napp-it. I will be moving my USB UPS from the rear USB port in my HP N40L to a front USB port so my nieces & nephews don't unplug a rpool member but I would like the drives to last as long as possible.
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
Are you really that wedded to the usb approach? As opposed to two small, cheap, SSDs?
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
Are you really that wedded to the usb approach? As opposed to two small, cheap, SSDs?
Yes, because I have a single internal SATA port open on my N40L, I already have the USB drives & money is tight so they would have to be free for me to afford the SSDs.
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
Fair enough. I think gea's done more with usb drives - use the best quality usb drives you can find. Other than that, good luck :)
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
I believe you need to disable atime, but I have no clue how to do that. Does OmniOS create a swap partition by default?
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
Napp-it to go is your ticket. It's all set up. Just download the right image.
Tried that when I got my 16GB thumb drives, unfortunately they were slightly smaller than what gea used when he created the image. Don't want to go out an buy more thumb drives so I will do an install over the RAC I have in my MicroServer.
 

gea

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2010
3,140
1,182
113
DE
Tried that when I got my 16GB thumb drives, unfortunately they were slightly smaller than what gea used when he created the image. Don't want to go out an buy more thumb drives so I will do an install over the RAC I have in my MicroServer.
Just do a regular install to an USB stick. After setup, disable ZFS property atime on rpool to reduce writes. After setup, you can also mirror your system to a second stick (and/or save an image of the stick with the imager from my napp-it to go).

You can also use a 30GB Sata SSD in an external USB case but a mirror of good and fast 16 GB USB sticks is ok unless you do not need a lot of bootsnaps or many tools/applications on the stick. You can also enable LZ4 compress.
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
Just do a regular install to an USB stick. After setup, disable ZFS property atime on rpool to reduce writes. After setup, you can also mirror your system to a second stick (and/or save an image of the stick with the imager from my napp-it to go).

You can also use a 30GB Sata SSD in an external USB case but a mirror of good and fast 16 GB USB sticks is ok unless you do not need a lot of bootsnaps or many tools/applications on the stick. You can also enable LZ4 compress.
I don't plan to do much, maybe install AFP & OwnCloud. For sure installing CrashPlan, but that is slow no matter what you do.
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
I decided to repurpose a 250GB HDD I had. Got CrashPlan working, but I cannot get SMB share access working. I am always prompted for a password, and I don't want to enable guest access if I can help it.
everyone@ has the full_set acl
I have even tried adding my specific user with the full_set acl, rebooting my OmniOS machine as well as my Windows 7 Desktop. Any suggestions or more info needed?
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
If you make sure the omnios/OI box has the same username&password as your login credentials for the windows7 box, it should just work... Shouldn't need to mess with acls or anything, just give your userid/groupid 775 permissions on the share. Leastways that works for me...
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
If you make sure the omnios/OI box has the same username&password as your login credentials for the windows7 box, it should just work... Shouldn't need to mess with acls or anything, just give your userid/groupid 775 permissions on the share. Leastways that works for me...
Just tried on the one share I have setup right now.
chmod 777 drivers/
chmod: changing permissions of 'drivers/': Not owner
????

Also, all users have rwx permissions.....really confused
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
It's hard to tell what is wrong, since we can't see where you are standing when you type this, nor what user you are logged in as. Note also that it was implicit in what I said that you need to chown as well as chmod.
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
I am logged into OmniOS as root, and a chown -R before the chmod didn't change anything. Still told "Not owner". At this time I am considering switching to NexentaStore Community as it meets a requirement from my wife in that it just works without taking up all my time.
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
Sorry you're having problems, but if you don't provide the info requested, I can't help.
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
Sorry you're having problems, but if you don't provide the info requested, I can't help.
Ok, just trying to get one share working right now and once its done I will add more.

Windows 7 username/password = OmniOS/napp-it username/password.

Unless Shaun on Windows != shaun on OmniOS/napp-it. I will try that next just to be safe.
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
Ok, just trying to get one share working right now and once its done I will add more.

Windows 7 username/password = OmniOS/napp-it username/password.

Unless Shaun on Windows != shaun on OmniOS/napp-it. I will try that next just to be safe.
And that was it, created a user named Shaun in napp-it and it works great.....one would think I know stuff like this since I am a developer.
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
It's always the simplest things. Glad it's sorted :) FWIW, I'd be leery of nexenta - it has been very unstable there lately, and the community forum is pretty much dead nowadays (if you don't count people posting problems with no responses...)
 

smccloud

Member
Jun 4, 2013
325
12
18
Final question (for right now), if I want to restrict access on a share to just me I remove the everyone@ permission and just add the user(s) that have access right?
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
If I recall correctly, if you chown the share to you/group and then chmod 775 that should kill the acl, but make sure it does...