Migrating Data Partition from Linux to OpenSolaris

[BillytheImpaler]

ITT yet another thrilling episode of my many idiotic questions regarding my maddeningly-slow migration to an OpenSolaris server.

Background: I have a Linux media server with a 320 GB HDD containing a 286 GB XFS partition containing movies, music, TV shows, and the like. I want to move the server to OpenSolaris and add 4.5 TB worth of disks in a zraid. It would be easy to do this if Solaris could read XFS:

Format 320 GB disk with Solaris boot partition -> Install OpenSolaris -> get system running -> add new disks -> make zraid -> copy existing data to new pool

However, since it can't read XFS I'm left with a bit of a problem. I can, I suppose, do the following:

Install one big new disk into the machine when it's running Linux -> format it to a filesystem that both Linux and OpenSolaris can read -> copy the data over -> nuke and partition the original disk -> install OpenSolaris -> copy data back to original disk with new partition -> install new disks -> make zraid -> copy existing data to new pool

The problem here is that I don't know which file systems, if any, can be shared among them both without pulling out all my hair and sacrificing a fatted calf at dawn on the vernal equinox (which I've already missed for this year!). Fat32 is no good since some files are too large for it. I suppose I can use tar and split to lump the binary data into appropriately-sized chunks then untar and cat 'em back together, but that's a lot of damn work and I'm a bit nervous about the GNU and Sun utilities working in different ways and borking all my data.

Running ls /usr/lib/fs
returns these supported FSes
autofs ctfs hsfs mntfs objfs proc udfs xmemfs cachefs fd lofs nfs pcfs tmpfs ufs

None look particularly promising and using another machine to pass the data over cifs or NFS is not an option.

Anybody have any clever ideas?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Can a VM like VirtualBox access a filesystem on a real disk that its host OS can't read? If it could I could then pass the data over the "network" using NFS or Samba/cifs. That'd be nifty.

Interesting idea! I'll check it out.

That sort of brings me to another OpenSolaris niggle. The installer doesn't seem to see my existing partitions. The documentation suggests that I prepare by first using fdisk, gparted, or some other 3rd party disk tool to get everything in order before starting. I guess I'll use a Linux live CD to nuke the current Linux / partition and plop Solaris on that. Seems like their installer is making it more complicated than it needs to be. It really really wants me to surrender the whole disk to them.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

I don't think it can read ext3. It can't seem to mount my current ext3 root partition when I'm using the OpenSolaris LiveCD for testing. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Everything I know about Solaris could be written on the back of a penny with a crayon.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Thanks so far, guys.

I could try to piece together external disks and have the space for it, but it would still leave me with the fat32 problem. NTFS is right out.

Maybe I could test out FUSE's ZFS support:
Boot OpenSolaris LiveCD, create ZFS partition on a big new disk (thought it doesn't really use partitions in the classical sense) -> Boot back into Linux -> Copy data to new ZFS disk -> nuke original disk _. install -> copy data back again

Sorry for a slight derail, but what are the benefits of zraid? Am I being nieve in thinking that it's just software raided ZFS partitions, or is there something more to it? And as a slight consequence, why do you want to move away from Linux to OS10? Though I had a quick play with it in a VM and it's quite nice, certainly moved on a lot since I used Solaris in Uni

ZFS does all sorts of awesome stuff, particularly with regards to snapshotting and data integrity. With a zraid I get RAID 5-type data integrity but with better checksumming for protection against "silent" corruption from cosmic rays, bad memory, and crappy-consumer-disk problems. It also gives greater performance and so-easy-BTI-can-do-it administration. Search the YouTubes and the Googles for some really awesome videos from Sun extolling the virtues of ZFS. It's definitely the platform I want to use to store all this data. Thought it's not vital, I really want to keep it around without having to spend double on disks to get offsite backups. I'm cheap and lazy.

We've had a few other discussions here about ZFS. Search the forum here for some of those threads.

I only see two big downsides to it. First you need to run it on some wonky OS that is as foreign to me as Linux is to a lifelong Windows user. Second it is unable to easily expand to incorporate more disks into a zraid pool without having to destroy all the data on the current pool and copy it back. If only we could have something like the file system Drobo uses, but without having to pay $800 and being limited to 4 disks.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Yeah, I was really hoping that IBM would buy Sun and GPL ZFS.

Heck, I'm not exactly sure why the CDDL-licensed code has not been ported to work on a Linux kernel. I know that it can't be distributed with the kernel, but it could certainly be added by the user, just as proprietary kernel module video drivers are added.

Now, rumor has it, Microsoft is interested in buying Sun. That would, IMO, end up with MS shelving most of Sun's tech to remove it as competition. That wouldn't be good for anybody.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Not sure this is helpful - but if your saying there that OpenSolaris can't read NTFS and FAT32 the you should get over to Blastwave and download NTFS-3g

EDIT:Sorry for the random snippet - only flicked over thread

Nah, it can read fat32, but it makes it more of a hassle since the FS can't handle large files. I've decided just to roll everything up in a big tarball split into 1 GiB chunks to overcome that.