BSD Raid -> Gentoo - Am I hosed?

DoubleA · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2006 Posts: 5

Folks,
I currently have a file server that is running on BSD. The filesystem of the RAID array is BSD's. I'm getting rid of that machine and am going to replace that machine w/ another. I would of course like to run Gentoo on the new machine - I want Gentoo on the file server. I an work through getting the raid board recognized, etc.; however, do I have any hope of Gentoo seeing and understanding the BSD file system? There is almost a tera-byte of data on the server and transferring data off and re-setting up the array would be a major PITA.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears. Can I convert the FS w/o losing anything? Can Gentoo recognize the BSD system and read/write/share (over NFS)?

Thanks in advance!

mdeininger · Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:10 pm Post subject:

UFS support (as used in *BSD) is still considered experimental in the linux kernel, so you might run into trouble... what BSD did you run on the server? UFS1 support is better than UFS2 support...

btw, you could always try one of the Gentoo/*BSD projects. their aim is to make Gentoo distributions that use the *BSD userland and kernel. I believe the Gentoo/NetBSD and Gentoo/OpenBSD projects already have official installation media, while the Gentoo/FreeBSD port already *sorta* works. that way you could get a BSD kernel (that should support everything you need) and still have gentoo (and thus portage...)
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DoubleA · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2006 Posts: 5

Thanks for the quick reply. The FS is UFS and the BSD is FreeBSD 5.4. I'll take a look at the BSD/Gentoo you reference, though I'd really like to have linux. My only reason for using BSD was that there were binary drivers and support for my raid card out of the box and the linux support was more sparse. I should have spent the time then to get things working the way I'd want.

Any other ideas? That's a lot of DVD-Rs to backup a good 800GB!

mdeininger · Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:24 am Post subject:

hmm, damn, according to my /usr/src/linux/Documentation/filesystems/ufs.txt , freebsd 5.x uses ufs2, and there's only read support for that

i think the best option would be to buy a new set of harddrives and copy things over to that. preferrably with linux software raid. (has the advantage that you're not going to be stuck with a specific raid controller card in case it dies. we had lots of those die on us and just couldn't get compatible replacements, so at work we switched to software raid. mostly, that is, we are very well stocked on a few older controllers, so we keep using those.)
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DoubleA · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2006 Posts: 5

Ok, thanks for the info. The card is a Highpoint 1820A. Recent forum posts show it as being difficult to work with 2.6 kernels (at least in Gentoo). I'm thinking I might just give the FreeBSD/Gentoo a try. If that turns out to not be what I'm looking for, I guess I'll bite the bullet and order up some more drives.

We need optical drives that can hold 100+GB / disc and not cost big $. Of course, I'll come across this post in 2 or 3 years and laugh....

mdeininger · Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:50 am Post subject:

lol, yeah probably

i suppose if blueray burners and media were cheaper and less experimental... *gg*
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