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Old 3rd September 2008
PatrickBaer PatrickBaer is offline
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Default E-SATA?

Hi everyone,

I need an sftp-server and would like to set it up with OpenBSD. The server will do nothing but sftp. It should have two e-sata drives connected and mounted in the sftp home-directory. The server will be connected directly to a DSL-line and the e-sata drives will be the only way to exchange data with machines inside the network.

Now my questions: Does OpenBSD support E-Sata at all? I could find any information about it And if it does, how stable is it?

TIA for your help!
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Old 3rd September 2008
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E-SATA is the same as SATA, just with different standards for connectors, size, etc., from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sata#External_SATA :

Quote:
Identical protocol and logical signaling (link/transport-layer and above), allowing native SATA devices to be deployed in external enclosures with minimal modification
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Old 3rd September 2008
PatrickBaer PatrickBaer is offline
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Mh, yeah I knew that, but what about controllers and adapters?

What I'm also a bit afraid of is stability. With FreeBSD, I have had so many problems using USB. whenever I unplug a device, I bet my rear end sooner or later it will crash and freeze to death until reboot.
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Old 3rd September 2008
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickBaer View Post
With FreeBSD, I have had so many problems using USB. whenever I unplug a device, I bet my rear end sooner or later it will crash and freeze to death until reboot.
Not to digress too far, but one of the new features introduced with OpenBSD 4.3 was:
Quote:
  • Filesystems on USB devices are automatically dismounted if the device is disconnected.
...quoting http://openbsd.org/43.html
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Old 3rd September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickBaer View Post
...what about controllers and adapters?...
The complete list of supported hardware for each architecture platform can be found by looking through your intended architecture web page at:

www.openbsd.org/plat.html

Please look there.
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Old 4th September 2008
PatrickBaer PatrickBaer is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ocicat View Post
Not to digress too far, but one of the new features introduced with OpenBSD 4.3 was:

Filesystems on USB devices are automatically dismounted if the device is disconnected.

...quoting http://openbsd.org/43.html

It's funny you mention that. I just had a 2T USB-drive connected to this machine here, did not even mount it, merely plug in, partition and unplug.

When I came back 10 minutes later: FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE
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Old 4th September 2008
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Your "freeze" might be diagnosed by setting ddb.console=1 and forcing the system into ddb(4) should the symptom reoccur.
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Old 4th September 2008
PatrickBaer PatrickBaer is offline
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But I don't want the system to debug, I want it to work

Or should I go to my boss and tell him "I know our customer's pissed because the machine crashes every hour, but hey! We got that nifty blue debug-screen!" ?
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Old 4th September 2008
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[Soapbox]
If you are unwilling to diagnose your own problems, may I recommend a commercial support contract? See www.openbsd.org/support.html for a list of companies and their services, world wide. You might consider outsourcing hardware selection, also.
[/Soapbox]

Wrong attitude, Patrick. See http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=596 for our hope, if not our expectations.
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Old 4th September 2008
PatrickBaer PatrickBaer is offline
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jgimi, with all respect, but I am not paid for debugging.

I have had the very same problem with three different BSDs: OpenBSD, FreeBSD and PCBSD. Each one sooner or later froze when unplugging a USB-device. Some did not for hours, sometimes a device did not freeze it at all. Yet, I have tried various machines with various usb-devices with various cables and various locations. The only thing they had in common: BSDl. Conclusion: If I have a critical task with USB => NO BSD.

I have more than ten years of systemadministration in my fingertips, and almost 8 with BSDs, as well as Sun, SGI etc. I doubt I'll need some funny lesson telling me where to find hardware errata or commercial support. If you don't have any other assistance to offer: Thank you and have a nice day.

The question remains, does anyone have experience with ESATA and is it stable with OpenBSD. Because until gettin paid for spending a week or two trying and testing if it works: No way.
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Old 4th September 2008
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This is not a help desk, Patrick. This is a user community. It's a relatively small one, too. If you wish to reach a wider OpenBSD audience, including developers of the OpenBSD Project, you will need to use the misc@ mailing list.

------

You have a problem with USB on three non-commercial OSes.

Free support is available from these three OS projects. That support is on a best effort basis only, providing you aid in the diagnostics of your own problem. You are unwilling to do this.

If you want your problem resolved, someone needs to debug it. Based on your unwillingness to capture diagnostic information, that won't be anyone at any of those three projects, as their best effort requires information you have stated you are unwilling to provide. You (or your company) can either do it yourselves, pay someone else to do it, or wait until, in due course -- perhaps never, if your hardware is not very popular -- someone else on the planet has the exact same problem, debugs it, a fix is developed and committed, and the fix makes it into an eventual release.

If you don't want to support your own use of a non-commercial OS, nor hire a 3rd party to do your support work for you, then select a commerical OS and hire a support contract for it, instead. Note that a commercial OS usage license is usually separate from any support contract, and said support may be on a similar best effort basis, and, typically, support contracts stipulate the customer must cooperate with the vendor and capture and supply diagnostic information.

The only difference between doing it yourself and hiring someone to do it is you may hire someone with skills and knowledge you lack. Culturally, you gain the advantage of having someone else to blame when problems are not resolved to your satisfaction. And perhaps you might even have financial leverage to get problems worked on and resolved. But there are no guarantees, even if you are a large customer of a major software vendor with deep staffing.

Good luck to you, and your company.

Last edited by jggimi; 4th September 2008 at 03:12 PM. Reason: typo
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Old 4th September 2008
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That was unbelievably rude PatrickBaer..

If you're not going to act civilized.. on a community created by BSD enthusiasts for BSD enthusiasts, then leave us in peace.

System administration implies a sort of responsibility, if you seek out help.. but at the same time are unwilling to follow expert advice, you've most definitely chosen the wrong career path in life.

Last edited by BSDfan666; 4th September 2008 at 04:47 PM.
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Old 4th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickBaer View Post
I have had the very same problem with three different BSDs: OpenBSD, FreeBSD and PCBSD. Each one sooner or later froze when unplugging a USB-device. Some did not for hours, sometimes a device did not freeze it at all.
Are you talking about detaching(unplugging) device without umounting it?

Detaching USB device without umounting it is known problem, and on FreeBSD side it is fixed (in 99% situations) on STABLE/HEAD branch.
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Old 4th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by richardpl View Post
Are you talking about detaching(unplugging) device without umounting it? ...
Highlight mine:
Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickBaer View Post
It's funny you mention that. I just had a 2T USB-drive connected to this machine here, did not even mount it, merely plug in, partition and unplug....
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Old 4th September 2008
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Quote:
jgimi, with all respect, but I am not paid for debugging.
I really don't want to tell you what you should or should not do, or what your job looks like, but in my experience a sysadmin's job is to make sure servers work.
How exactly he or she makes them work is not really important to whoever is paying you ... If debugging is what's necessary, then that's what's necessary.

I realize you're not in a pretty situation, in fact, it downright sucks, but this is a drawback of using (a free) operating system primarily developed in people's spare time, and with little or no commercial support ... No one owes you anything, The OpenBSD people will fix it when it suits them, which may be tomorrow, or it may be in a year ... Or maybe never.

All that you (As a non-developer/programmer) can do is to provide as much accurate information to describe the problem as you can, which will make it easier for the OpenBSD developers to locate and fix the problem/bug.

This is simply how free operating systems (Such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, etc.) work.
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Old 4th September 2008
PatrickBaer PatrickBaer is offline
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Hey Carpet, no problem at all. We two have different points of view, so what? My opinion about things like this USB-stuff is quite simple: Don't do it. I cannot risk my head using a system which will almost definitely run into severe problems. So I won't waste my time doing things like this but stick to the stuff I know it works. I have had dozens of systems with BSDs for all kind of purposes, Mail, Apache, Newsserver whatever. All worked just fine. But use them for USB? No

I got no idea, how you people work with BSDs: At home, at work, at school. Do you have a single fileserver or a 20 machine database cluster? But if you have a sales-guy, customer support, the CEO and a bunch of cutters behind you, you'd better think twice before using a "is most probably not really working 100% ok but with a bit of luck it will after a week or so of work spent on it"-system.

I am still in the situation: I need a machine with the ability to hot-swap ESATA-drives. And I came in here to ask for opinions, maybe someone has worked with external drives and knows about bugs and limitations, maybe can recommend controllers and so on. But instead of qualified opinions people send me links to hardwarelists

Oh, BSDFan, just a little note: That was my "whipcream with sugar on top"-version. I actually have no idea what you are so shocked about, just like I have no idea why you feel involved at all?

Oh well...

Back to topic, if someone really has experience, with ESATA, please tell me.
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Old 5th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PatrickBaer View Post
I have had the very same problem with three different BSDs: OpenBSD, FreeBSD and PCBSD.
Not to nit-pick, but that's only 2 BSDs: PC-BSD and FreeBSD are the same OS.

Quote:
The only thing they had in common: BSDl.
OpenBSD has no relation to BSDi. And very little from BSDi is in FreeBSD.

Quote:
Conclusion: If I have a critical task with USB => NO BSD.
That is a valid conclusion. The existing USB stack on FreeBSD is brittle. There is a new USB stack available for testing in FreeBSD 8-CURRENT. However, it doesn't directly address this issue.

I don't know how much better/worse the USB stack on OpenBSD is.

Quote:
The question remains, does anyone have experience with ESATA and is it stable with OpenBSD. Because until gettin paid for spending a week or two trying and testing if it works: No way.
There is no difference between SATA and eSATA. It is the same protocol, on the same controllers. The only difference is the physical connectors. In fact, you can just run a normal SATA cable out through a hole in the case, and you have "external SATA".
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Old 5th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phoenix View Post
Not to nit-pick, but that's only 2 BSDs: PC-BSD and FreeBSD are the same OS.
But they are still three separate projects with separate support communities, should Patrick (or his company) ever wish resolution of their USB issue(s).
Quote:
There is no difference between SATA and eSATA.
Carpetsmoker had already discussed this in his first response in this thread.

FWIW, eSATA can be found in the misc@ archives in three threads. In addition, it is specifically mentioned on the OpenBSD website only in reference to OpenBSD/socppc hardware connectivity.
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Old 5th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
But they are still three separate projects with separate support communities, should Patrick (or his company) ever wish resolution of their USB issue(s).
Yes, but a fix in one is a fix in the other, as they use the same source tree. It's not like PC-BSD is going to come out with a "USB Stack" PBI. The PC-BSD OS is FreeBSD.
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Old 5th September 2008
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True. Of course, it is moot in this case.
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