FreeNAS and plugins Jail on the same pendrive

[wreuel]

Hello everybody,
Next I have a 16GB flash drive where I installed my FreeNAS 8.3, my problem is that I wanted to use the remaining space (13GB others that are free) and to install the plugins jail. Does anyone know any way to do this?

Thank you in advance!

 

[cyberjock]

You can't. The FAQ explains why.

 

[Milhouse]

You can't. The FAQ explains why.

Do you have a direct link to the explanation? Is it the same as this one?

Although I understand that FreeNAS uses 4 partitions by default, what is there to stop someone manually adding a fifth partition for the remaining space on the boot device, and then mounting this fifth partition for use by a jail (or anything else for that matter)? Is it feasible? Obviously there is the issue of the partition becoming corrupted, and perhaps preventing the system from booting (or maybe it would just be the jail that won't start), but that is a separate issue.

 

[cyberjock]

A partition table can only have 4 entries. It's a throwback to the 70s. :P

 

[wreuel]

I want my install FreeNAS on a 4GB pendrive and plugins in jail for another 2GB pendrive, so I can swap the HD's with no problems reinstalling plugins. Is this possible?
Well I have to make a return for a 160GB HDD for a 320GB to increase the capacity of my FreeNAS, only when the FreeNAS's already almost sold out, there will probably gives problem in jail.

 

[Milhouse]

A partition table can only have 4 entries. It's a throwback to the 70s. :P

Gah! Of course - the maximum number of primary partitions is 4. :-(

However it is possible to create more partitions by switching to an extended partition scheme, but this won't work with FreeNAS as it currently stands.

 

[wreuel]

Gah! Of course - the maximum number of primary partitions is 4. :-(

However it is possible to create more partitions by switching to an extended partition scheme, but this won't work with FreeNAS as it currently stands.

Ok, i understood, but i can install FreeNAS on usb stick 4GB and jail in other usb stick 2GB?

 

[toddos]

Why are you so intent on putting your jail on a USB stick? That's a recipe for failure. The OS works well on a USB stick because it's static. It's read off the disk at boot time, put into memory, and then only writes the config database back to disk if you make any changes. The jail, however, is not static. It's reading and writing pretty much all the time (depending on what you install, of course, but most things log). USB flash drives do not like that.

Just follow the instructions and put your jail datasets on one of your storage pools. The amount of space it'll use is minimal, and should not impact pool performance either.

 

[Milhouse]

Just follow the instructions and put your jail datasets on one of your storage pools. The amount of space it'll use is minimal, and should not impact pool performance either.

Your disks will never spin down with an unmodified jail, for one thing, which can be annoying.

How much is logged depends entirely on what is in the jail, some services may not log much at all, others will log excessively. Either way, your disks will always be spinning even when the machine is "idle". Modifying the jail to use memory backed storage for /var/tmp and /var/log helps enormously, putting the entire jail on a USB memory stick will be even more effective, though likely less resilient.

 

[wreuel]

toddos and Milhouse,

I am wanting to put the stick in jail today because the computer I installed FreeNAS only has 2 SATA ports, and it happens that yesterday I had to put a HD500GB in place of a 160GB and I ended up having to reinstall the jail, (I did the file backup), but it is annoying to reinstall and configure the jail and the programs I use (sickbeard, couchpotato, SABnzbd, headphones, subsonic, transmission), placing the jail on a pendrive part, I can simply replace the whole machine and connect he va recognizing, remembering just detach the old HD's ...

 

[joeschmuck]

@wreuel
Yes you can place your jails on a separate USB Flash drive, I do it myself without issue. I also use it for any scripts I want to run. And the only reason I do this is so my hard drives may spin down. If your hard drive(s) are expected to spin all the time then I would recommend setting up the jail on the hard drive, but you can place it on a USB flash drive if you like.

Items of concern... When using a USB Flash drive for a jail you need to be concerned about read and write speed. Most USB drives now days read fairly fast but most do not write fast. Do some homework and find a flash drive that will write at 10MB/sec or faster (faster is much better) but unfortunately USB 3.0 is not supported. You can try a USB 3.0 drive in a USB 2.0 connection to see if it works but don't buy too large of a capacity as my experience shows they may not be recognized properly, if at all. Here is a website that has some results on certain flash drives http://usbspeed.nirsoft.net/ and will give you an example of what to look for.

My favorites are the discontinued Adata PD7 (very fast) and then the Patriot USB drives are generally fast. I bought a 32GB HP that while it is very fast, FreeNAS 8.3.0 would not recognize it properly even though 8.0.4 worked perfectly so I'm hoping I can use it again when FreeNAS 9.x comes out. So what I'm saying is it's a hit and miss at times.

Last thing, when using a USB Flash drive for jails, in my experience you can use formatted as UFS or ZFS, either will work but UFS (what I use) is faster and speed is one thing we are concerned about.

I run MiniDLNA from my jail and a few scripts, all without any error. My tag line shows my configuration.