Using the complete available disk space on installation

[mpi]

I just noticed that when installing FreeNAS and the underlying harddrive has more capacity than the installation requires (i.E. the partition dumps), then the final partition sizes will be the same as the partition images in the installation file of FreeNAS and hence smaller than the available capacity.

So just for my understanding:
Is there any means of a custom installation and partitioning (labeling etc. like in FreeBSD) to distribute the available capacity on all partitions?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Tekkie]

RTFM ;) http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Requirements 3rd paragraph.

 

[mpi]

RTFM ;) http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Requirements 3rd paragraph.

First: Before using words, understand them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM
Second: You have not read/understood my question AT ALL. It clearly says "Is there any means of a custom...?" So if you have no constructive ideas, just shut up. :) Thanks. :)

 

[ixdwhite]

Please be courteous to others on the forum. Thank you

There is no built-in facility to utilize any additional space beyond the first 1GB on the boot disk at this time; in fact, there is a fair bit of code to ensure this does _not_ happen, since it assumes it is a relatively slow USB flash device. If you wish to use this space you will need to modify the FreeNAS code to add support for it.

FreeNAS 8's code explicitly filters the boot device from the device list in a number of places, so you would have to modify code throughout the application to change this filter.

Also be aware that:

• All but one of the partition entries are used for the core system, and the "unused" one (i.e. points to a partition with a filesystem with no data on it) is #3. The device name for this in FreeNAS is "/dev/ufs/FreeNASs3". It might be aliased to a /dev/xxxs3 depending on the boot device type where xxxx is the device name (da0, ada7).
• The install image splats on a partition table for a 1GB device so you will have to amend the MBR to encompass the entire underlying disk and hope that the boot blocks still work.
• Upgrades will erase all your work (and your data volume) since it overwrites the first 1GB with the install image.

Hope this helps.

 

[mpi]

Hmhm, thanks for you explanation.
However it's interesting that the installation image for FreeNAS 8 contains the complete partition maps including sectors and sizes and only needs to be dd'ed to the drive. Now I do wonder, why you would need any prior checks, if the maps only have to be extracted. Or did you refer to some other version?

Besides that FreeNAS 0.7 already contains a similar behaviour as sysinstall from FreeBSD does. So it cannot be that far off in the future, as you can specify the size of the base partition and swap size.
Interesting, huh?

So I think the questions is quite valid. :)
Anyway thanks for your efforts...

 

[survive]

Hi mpi,

FreeNAS 7 used a stripped down version of FreeBSD 7 that was tweaked to minimize writes in the embedded install. FreeNAS 8 is based off nanobsd, which is built specifically for use in embedded applications that are installed some kind of flash media. Ideally you install FreeNAS to a flash drive freeing up your storage ports for proper storage. This does of course impose some limitations on what you can do with the base OS.

You can increase the size of the 2 nanobsd partitions following the instructions here:

http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Test_Upcoming_Versions

The instructions are about three quarters of the way down the "Rolling Your Own Testing Snapshot" section.

Remember that if you do this you will need to compile your own release each time you want to update so the nanobsd partitions remain your desired size.

I don't know exactly what problem you are looking to solve, I would imagine you want to install some software that isn't included in the FreeNAS install, but remember,if you do that all that software would be wiped out when you update, so this can get complicated quick!

Conversely you can wait for 8.1, when the package management system is due to be rolled out or you could check in the forums as there are some posts detailing some efforts to use unionfs to install software as well.

-Will