OpenBSD as Samba/NAS server ?

[Freezr]

Hi folks,

this is something that I have been keeping on hold for a very long time without coming up with valuable a solution.

I bought (more than a year ago) an Odroid-HC4 board to replace my old RPI2 as samba server (debian/OSMC), I was pretty sure it had support for FreeBSD and the likes but I was wrong. Therefore I have been evaluating that I could use ZFS with Ubuntu anyway but the idea of using Ubuntu + systemd really pissed me off... The only good point of Ubuntu was the long-term-support and anything else. All of these stopped to take an action.

Regarding this board only OpenBSD seems to have full support, at this rate OpenBSD looks to be the better compromise, but I do not have any experience in using OpenBSD to serve files and maybe few other services like Torrent and XMPP...

What are my concerns (based on lack of knowledge):

• FFS looks for me very few reliable
• FFS and OpenBSD are generally slow
• Samba implementation on OpenBSD is flaky (?)
• Softraid mirror is unreliable in production (?)
• Softraid mirror will slow down further your I/O (?)
• OpenBSD is unreliable on a SD card (?)
• Samba is harder to configure on OpenBSD (?)

Basically I would install the OS on the SD (which I may mount in RO mode most of the time) and create a softraid mirror with the 2 WD Nas Spin Drive. Between Ubuntu vs OpenBSD I think the reply is obvious...

I am only concerned for the data (which are mostly gazillion of pictures).

Thanks in advance,
Freezr

[jggimi]

Originally Posted by Freezr

What are my concerns (based on lack of knowledge):

• FFS looks for me very few reliable
• FFS and OpenBSD are generally slow
• Samba implementation on OpenBSD is flaky (?)
• Softraid mirror is unreliable in production (?)
• Softraid mirror will slow down further your I/O (?)
• OpenBSD is unreliable on a SD card (?)
• Samba is harder to configure on OpenBSD (?)

In order:

1. OpenBSD's FFS (and the more recent FFS2) have a very long history, dating back to the Unix File System (UFS) as their antecedent. I consider it a highly reliable filesystem, but it lacks some of the features of more modern filesystem implementations such as journal logs, automatic replication, snapshots, etc.
2. OpenBSD is not a performance-focused OS, it is an OS focused on security, reliability, and availability. I run FFS2 filesystems on SSD and I/O performance has not been a significant bottleneck for any of my workloads. You will be able to form your own opinions after you have some experience with the OS.
3. I ran Samba many years ago on OpenBSD/i386, and did not have any "flaky" operational issues at the time. I do not have any recent experience with it, however.
4. I've been running softraid(4) systems since its inception in 2007, and began first with a RAID1 discipline to replace a production RAIDframe server. I experience a drive failure in the first year or two and recall being able to swap drives and rebuild the array without any operational issues. More recently I use softraid(4) with the CRYPTO discipline and have never had an issue. Among the available disciplines, only RAID5 is not recommended for production use. (Correction on RAID5, per the OpenBSD FAQ: RAID5 cannot be used for boot on any architecture. It is currently only possible to boot from RAID1 and CRYPTO volumes on i386, amd64, arm64, and sparc64.)
5. Any RAID1 implementation -- by definition -- doubles your write I/O requirements. Reads, however, are split between devices on the array, which may improve read operational performance. OpenBSD's softraid(4) RAID1 discipline allows the admin to provision more than 2 devices in the array, which may provide additional benefits for availability or for operational management.
6. A drive sector is a drive sector. There's nothing "unreliable" about OpenBSD's writes and reads of any mass storage device compared to any other OS's writes and reads. If you are unable to trust your media for reads or writes, your selection of OS won't improve the outcome.
7. This Samba complaint may be related to your "flaky" concern. I would point you to the file /usr/local/share/doc/pkg-readmes/samba for OpenBSD-specific provisioning. This file is available to you once you install the samba package. Or, you can review the pkg-readme file from the OpenBSD Ports tree: https://github.com/openbsd/ports/blo...kg/README-main

Basically I would install the OS on the SD (which I may mount in RO mode most of the time) and create a softraid mirror with the 2 WD Nas Spin Drive. Between Ubuntu vs OpenBSD I think the reply is obvious...

Mounting filesystems read-only will cause you administrative and operational headaches, and is unnecessary with any solid state device that can conduct wear-leveling, which I believe to include every SD card ever manufactured. I recommend you avoid doing this.

[Freezr]

jggimi thank you very much for your kind reply.

I'd like to sharer you consideration with other friends if this doesn't mind you.

Please let me know!

[jggimi]

This is a public forum, open to the internet. Your friends are welcome to read any post or comment.

My comments above are merely my opinions in response to your claims.

[jggimi]

I went back through man pages and the OpenBSD FAQ and could not locate any warning about production use of the RAID5 discipline, though the FAQ notes a RAID5 array cannot be used for boot. I will edit my comment above to make note of this correction.

[jggimi]

Because Freezr mentioned samba and had concerns about it possibly being "flaky", I'm replying again to note that there is now a call-for-testing of samba 4.15.7 on the ports@ mailing list.

For any OpenBSD -current users who run samba clients or servers, this is an opportunity to build an updated package for yourself and report the results of your testing.

Developer jca@, one of the maintainers of samba on OpenBSD, wrote: "While updating to 4.16 would be nice, testing 4.15.7 could help -stable users. Tests reports and oks welcome." https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports&m...1274931763&w=2

Positive reports are needed to commit port updates. Any -current user can participate; it is a great way to give back to the community. OpenBSD Port Testing Guide.

The "oks" jca@ is asking for are commit approvals from other OpenBSD developers.