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Manuals (engl)
Concept
Hardware
Why ZFS
Service SMF
Stop
Tuning
- ready to use and comfortable ZFS storage appliance for iSCSI/FC, NFS and SMB
- Active Directory support with Snaps as Previous Version
- user friendly Web-GUI that includes all functions for a sophisticated NAS or SAN appliance.
- commercial use allowed
- no capacity limit
- free download for End-User
- increased GUI performance/ background agents
- bugfix/ updates/ access to bugfixes
- extensions like comfortable ACL handling, disk and realtime monitoring or remote replication
- appliance diskmap, security and tuning (Pro complete)
- Redistribution/Bundling/setup on customers demand optional
Details: Featuresheet.pdf
Concept
The idea behind napp-it is to use a default enterprise class Unix from the makers of ZFS like the OpenSource Solaris fork Illumos with the minimalistic distribution OmniOS (bloody, stable, long term stable; main platform for napp-it) or OpenIndiana (desktop or server edition, ongoing Illumos) both with Open-ZFS or Oracle Solaris 11.4 with original ZFS. Both were developped together with ZFS with a deep integration of ZFS into the OS and sharing services like FC/iSCSI, NFS or SMB as strict ZFS properties and part of the OS. To manage a Solaris based ZFS filer you can use CLI commands or the napp-it web-gui for easier management. You can even combine both options.
While napp-it follows OS development you can in general update/downgrade OS and napp-it independently from the other. First and main source of information around a Solaris based ZFS filer are the manuals mainly from Oracle
Online manuals for the Solaris fork Illumos (with distributions like NexentaStor, OmniOS, OpenIndiana, SmartOS etc)
Illumos is a fork of last OpenSolaris. It is like an earlier Solaris 11 release with its own development since. Manuals for Solaris up to 11.2 are perfect to manage and understand Illumos beside features like encryption that are from Open-ZFS not Solaris ZFS.
Operating Systems Documentation - Oracle Solaris Documentation
(select manuals for Solaris 11.1 or 11.2)
Books
Oracle Solaris 11.2 System Administration Handbook,
ISBN: 9780071844215
Online manuals for Oracle Solaris 11.4
While in many aspects Solaris 11.4 behaves similar to the Solaris fork Illumos, there are some differences mainly in OS management and sharing options.
Operating Systems Documentation - Oracle Solaris Documentation
(select manuals for Solaris 11.4)
Featuresheet and pricelist about napp-it:
Featuresheet.pdf and Pricelist
Setup of a Solaris based ZFS filer with napp-it
This means basically
1. Select supported hardware. Most critical are HBA and Nic
Common are cache/raidless BroadCom HBA 930x and 9400 with IT/IR firmware or other with Jbod mode and Nics from Intel or Chelsio
https://illumos.org/hcl/
Solaris based ZFS systems have quite the lowest resource needs for a ZFS filer.
2 GB RAM is enough for any poolsize without dedup. RAM above depends on use case for caching and performance.
Minimal OS disk size is 16GB, suggested is 30GB +2x RAM size to allow seamless updates with former OS states as bootable bootenvironments.
2. Install a Solarish distribution of choice like the Opensource Solaris fork OmniOS/ OpenIndiana or Solaris 11.4
(Oracle Solaris is commercial but Solaris 11.4cbe is free for noncommercial/demo use)
https://omnios.org/download.html
https://www.oracle.com/de/solaris/solaris11/downloads/solaris-downloads.html
3. Add napp-it (web-gui for easier management), console as root
wget -O - www.napp-it.org/nappit | perl
Base manual
Setup and update
Under ESXI:
Installation of the napp-it ZFS server as an embedded virtualized SAN VM via ready to use .ova template
How to setup Napp-In-One
and HowTo Setup ESXi
Maintenance
Sharing options
SMB
(This is what you mostly want for any client OS)
SMB (Microsoft) is a sharing protocol for high performance multiuser access with authentication and authorisation. It is the best general use sharing option. On Solaris SMB shares are a strict property of a ZFS filesystem. Sharing is enabled when you set the smb share property to on in menu ZFS filesystems. Solarish SMB is based on Windows ntfs alike ACL instead Unix permissions like 755 with additional Windows compatible SMB groups.The Solaris SMB server is the killer feature for many to use Solarish.
Step 1: Install Solaris or OmniOS
Step 2: set smbshare=on for a ZFS filesystem
Step 3: There is no step 3, no complicated SAMBA smb.conf file to edit,
Windows AD and SMB groups, ntfs alike ACL, SID as ZFS attribute or ZFS snaps as Windows previous versions out of the box
readme solarish_smb.pdf
AlanWright_OpenSolaris_CIFS.pdf (source of OmniOS SMB)
iSCSI
With iSCSI you can provide blockbased storage that can be used on clients like local disks with a local filesystem like ext or ntfs. To setup a iSCSI Lun, you must
Step 1. create a logical unit (raw disk, file or ZFS zvol)
Step 2. create a target (this is what a client wants to connect to)
Step 3. create a view from the target to the logical unit to make it visible
Luns can be used only from one client at a time (no multiuser/multihost access without a Cluster software)
Napp-it can provide Luns as a property of a ZFS filesystem in menu ZFS Filesystems.
more: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23824 01/html/821-1459/fmvcd.html
NFS
NFS (network filesystem) is a sharing protocol for high performance multiuser access. It is mainly used in VM environments. On Solaris NFS shares are a strict property of a ZFS filesystem (Sun invented NFS with ZFS and Solaris). Sharing is enabled when you set the nfs share property to on in menu ZFS filesystems. NFS v3 comes without user authentication or authorisation. Access can be controlled effectively only via client ip.
Step 1: Install Solaris or OmniOS
Step 2: set nfsshare=on for a ZFS filesystem
Step 3: There is no step 3, connect a client via ip://pool/filesystem
S3
This is a cloudbased object sharing option from Amazon. Napp-it S3 is based on minIO,
https://charts.min.io/
ZFS Encryption with keyserver, bootunlock/user-lock/unlock via SMB shares and autolock/unlock based on rules and timetables
http://napp-it.org/doc/downloads/zfs encryption.pdf
Discussions
Forums
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?forums/solaris-nexenta-openindiana-and-napp-it.26/
https://hardforum.com/threads/opensolaris-derived-zfs-nas-san-omnios-openindiana-solaris-and-napp-it.1573272/
https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/zfs-stammtisch.570052/ (german)
https://app.gitter.im/#/room/#omniosorg_lobby:gitter.im
https://hardforum.com/threads/all-in-one-esxi-with-virtualized-solarish-based-zfs-san-in-a-box.1621544/ (All in One)
SmartOS discuss
Maillists
https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss
https://www.mail-archive.com/openindiana-discuss@openindiana.org/
Issues/ bugs/ new features
https://www.illumos.org/issues
News, Tips and Tricks
Tips and Tricks (read this)
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/napp-it-zfs-server-on-omnios-solaris-news-tips-and-tricks.38240/
Why ZFS
Risks of a dataloss.pdf
ZFS Design principles
zfs_design_principles.pdf
OmniOS (Solaris) server and Apple OSX clients
apple_osx.pdf
Build examples from home to Petabytes
napp-it_build_examples.pdf
ZFS HA Cluster with storage and service failover SSF of
ip, services, pools, permissions, user and jobs
How to setup a HA ZFS Cluster
Local ZFS fileserver + secure Internet access + S3 compatible Cloud storage via minIO
dreamteam.pdf
Cloud-Filer: use napp-it as a local Filer + Cloud S3 in a multiuser environment
http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/cloudsync.pdf
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/amazon-s3-compatible-client-server-minio.27524/
S3 Integration as a filesystem sharing option
Performance and tuning
Intel Xeon silver 4110 vs Epyc 7302, default vs sync and encryption enabled
epyc_performance.pdf
Intel Optane 32G/800P/900P NVMe, a game changing technology for faster pools
optane_slog_pool_performane.pdf
Allocation Classes (special/dedup vdevs): Performance improvements and when to use
special-vdev.pdf
High Performance 2 x 12G SAS Multipath Storage
http://napp-it.org/doc/downloads/sas.pdf
High Performance SMB storage ex for video editing on OSX and Windows
Performance and principles (up to 600 MB/s - 800MB/s write and read with SMB2 and Jumboframes and some OS tunings)
Benchmarks about number of vdevs, sync-write (ZIL) and SSD only pools
Benchmarks
other docs
Read/Download current Solaris 11.x manuals
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/documentation/solaris-11-192991.html
News, bugs, be up to date, join the follwowing maillists (join them, its important)
Illumos-discuss (archive)
OmniOS discuss archive)
Rolebased usermanagement + Filer + Backup + external secure Internet access
LX Zones in napp-it (new) to run lightweight Linux container under OmniOS
http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/zones.pdf (currently Solaris only, OmniOS, OI under development)
Infos about napp-it scripting, napp-it file structure, modifications or debugging (work in progress)
Advanced User
Video tutorials
Matt Ahrens (one of the original ZFS developers) and others
OpenZFS Basics
How ZFS Snapshots really work
OpenZFS Device Removal and RaidZ Expansion
zfs send and receive
Dedup performance
others
ZFS encryption (Tom Caputto/ Datto)
See also the STH Buyers Guide
http://www.servethehome.com/buyers-guides/top-hardware-components-napp-omnios-nas-servers/
More videos
videos about setup
Howto flash LSI SAS onboard or PCIe HBAs controllers to IT mode on EFI boards,
http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/flash lsi sas.pdf
How to use USB as a datastore in ESXi 6 (possible option for napp-in-one at home)
http://www.virten.net/2015/10/usb-devices-as-vmfs-datastore-in-vsphere-esxi-6-0/
you can use the new free ESXi webclient to create a datastore in ESXI (stop usbarbitrator per CLI)
more Oracle Solaris Manuals:
Oracle Solaris 11 manuals
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/documentation/solaris-11-192991.html
Manage SMB file sharing in Oracle Solaris 11.4
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37838 01/pdf/E61013.pdf
Illumos based systems like OmniOS or OpenIndiana
are quite identical to Oracle Solaris
11 Express (beside encryption)
so you can use the Oracle Docs for Solaris Express 11 and
Illumos based systems as a reference.
Solaris Express 11 manuals (This was basically Illumos + encryption)
google or check http://archive.today/snZaS (downloads are working, links refer to Solaris 11)
Example: Oracle Express 11 manuals
Introducing Solaris 11 Express
First steps with Solaris 11 Express
Archive of complete Solaris 11 Express manuals, use the pdf download link as they refer to the old versions (download them)
How to install mpio on a Windows server
https://www.highlnk.com/2015/01/zfs-iscsi-lun-mpio-setup-windows-server/
About disk failure rates and reliability
research.google.com/en/archive/disk failures.pdf
http://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/
http://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/
Other Guides and Wikis
Perl
Napp-it is a Perl application. Perl is included in most Linux and Unix systems and still best suited for local and cgi system management
and string manipulation based on regular expressions with a good file locking mechanism for multiuser text manipulation.
https://www.perltutorial.org/
https://wiki.selfhtml.org/wiki/Perl (german)
To create and edit Perl scripts, I use the Dzsoft Perl editor (now free)
http://www.dzsoft.com/perl-editor.html
http://www.dzsoft.com/register.htm?app=dzperl (key, free)
Openindiana wiki: http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/1.+Introduction
HardForum: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1573272
ServetheHome: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?forums/solaris-nexenta-openindiana-and-napp-it.26/
About extending napp-it using Perl
http://www.guru99.com/perl-tutorials.html
http://qntm.org/files/perl/perl.html