Tag Archives: hardware

Sensors Information on FreeBSD

I remember vigorous discussions that were taken several years ago about monitoring hardware sensors on FreeBSD system. Back then I never really needed them. Not that I need them now but I recently got to know the sensors(1) command on Linux. Without any arguments it just prints the available sensors data on the screen and exits. Like example output from ThinkPad T14 laptop.

RHEL % sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:  +51.0Β°C  (high = +100.0Β°C, crit = +100.0Β°C)
Core 0:        +49.0Β°C  (high = +100.0Β°C, crit = +100.0Β°C)
Core 1:        +50.0Β°C  (high = +100.0Β°C, crit = +100.0Β°C)
Core 2:        +51.0Β°C  (high = +100.0Β°C, crit = +100.0Β°C)
Core 3:        +49.0Β°C  (high = +100.0Β°C, crit = +100.0Β°C)

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +54.0Β°C  (crit = +128.0Β°C)

iwlwifi_1-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +54.0Β°C

thinkpad-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
fan1:        2873 RPM

Nothing spectacular to be honest – but also a nice single place to check all temperatures instead of filtering endless sysctl(8) output.

The FreeBSD framework was known as bsdhwmon name and last available version is from somewhere in 2015. Its even available in the FreeBSD packages and I tried to install it and use.

FreeBSD # pkg search hwmon
bsdhwmon-20151206              Hardware sensor monitoring utility for FreeBSD

FreeBSD # pkg install -y bsdhwmon
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up to date.
All repositories are up to date.
The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:
        bsdhwmon: 20151206

Number of packages to be installed: 1

12 KiB to be downloaded.

[1/1] Fetching bsdhwmon-20151206.pkg: 100%   12 KiB  12.0kB/s    00:01
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
[1/1] Installing bsdhwmon-20151206...
[1/1] Extracting bsdhwmon-20151206: 100%

FreeBSD # pkg info -l bsdhwmon-20151206
bsdhwmon-20151206:
        /usr/local/man/man8/bsdhwmon.8.gz
        /usr/local/sbin/bsdhwmon
        /usr/local/share/licenses/bsdhwmon-20151206/BSD2CLAUSE
        /usr/local/share/licenses/bsdhwmon-20151206/LICENSE
        /usr/local/share/licenses/bsdhwmon-20151206/catalog.mk

FreeBSD # /usr/local/sbin/bsdhwmon
Your motherboard does not appear to be supported.  Please visit
https://github.com/koitsu/bsdhwmon to see if support for your motherboard
and/or system is under development.

I do not want to be harsh but not very useful. I expected at least something … anything. Seems that the project is dead for 7 years not without a reason.

I checked what is already available in several places of the FreeBSD system that may be used as data source to create something similar to the sensors(1) command. I started with sysctl(8) output and later went to smartctl(8) command from the smartmontools package. This data was more then enough to start with something.

Meet the first version of small sensors.sh script that gathers all these data sources and prints them all on screen.

sensors.code

Below you will find output from my elderly ThinkPad W520 laptop.

FreeBSD # sensors.sh

            BATTERY/AC/TIME/FAN/SPEED
 ------------------------------------
                       hw.acpi.acline: 1
                 hw.acpi.battery.time: 274
                 hw.acpi.battery.life: 99
                hw.acpi.cpu.cx_lowest: C1
                   dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan: 0
             dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan_level: 0
             dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan_speed: 2454

                  SYSTEM/TEMPERATURES
 ------------------------------------
      hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature: 48.1C
                dev.cpu.7.temperature: 47.0C
                dev.cpu.6.temperature: 47.0C
                dev.cpu.5.temperature: 46.0C
                dev.cpu.4.temperature: 47.0C
                dev.cpu.3.temperature: 46.0C
                dev.cpu.2.temperature: 47.0C
                dev.cpu.1.temperature: 48.0C
                dev.cpu.0.temperature: 48.0C

                   DISKS/TEMPERATURES
 ------------------------------------
   smart.ada0.airflow_temperature_cel: 36.0C

Another example output from my home NAS with two 5TB SATA disks – Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server – described here more.

FreeBSD # sensors.sh

            BATTERY/AC/TIME/FAN/SPEED
 ------------------------------------
                hw.acpi.cpu.cx_lowest: C1

                  SYSTEM/TEMPERATURES
 ------------------------------------
      hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature: 26.9C
                dev.cpu.3.temperature: 50.0C
                dev.cpu.2.temperature: 50.0C
                dev.cpu.1.temperature: 48.0C
                dev.cpu.0.temperature: 49.0C

                   DISKS/TEMPERATURES
 ------------------------------------
   smart.ada1.airflow_temperature_cel: 33.0C
       smart.ada1.temperature_celsius: 33.0C
   smart.ada0.airflow_temperature_cel: 33.0C
       smart.ada0.temperature_celsius: 33.0C

You can grab it from my scripts site – sensors.sh – I did not created separate GitHub page for it.

It comes with some simple builtin help message that I think explains everything.

sensors.help

Please check how it works on your system and let me know if it would be useful to add something more to it. As I not so long ago changed employer to the one that uses SLES and RHEL systems I can not test it on physical FreeBSD servers. Not that my earlier employer would be a huge help here as only several physical machines were FreeBSD based – but at least they were the biggest ones – FreeBSD Enterprise 1 PB Storage – you can read about these here. I also made a PBUG presentation later partially about that machine. You can find it – FreeBSD Enterprise Storage at PBUG – here.

UPDATE 1 – Screenshot After Updates

Many people suggested and submitted some interesting updates to the – sensors.sh – script – thank you for that. The script remains in the same place but here is how it looks and behave now.

sensors.update.1

EOF.

FreeBSD Enterprise Storage at PBUG

Yesterday I was honored to give a talk about FreeBSD Enterprise Storage at the Polish BSD User Group meeting.

You are invited to download the PDF Slides – https://is.gd/bsdstg – available here.

bsdstg

The PBUG (Polish BSD User Group) meetings are very special. In “The Matrix” movie (which has been rendered on FreeBSD system by the way) – FreeBSD Used to Generate Spectacular Special Effects – details available here – its not possible to describe what the Matrix really is, one has to feel it. Enter it. The same I can tell you about the PBUG meetings. Its kinda like with the “Hangover” movie. What happens in Vegas PBUG meeting stays in Vegas PBUG meeting πŸ™‚

If you will have the possibility and time then join the next Polish BSD User Group meeting. You will not regret it :>

UPDATE 1 – Shorter Unified Version

The original – https://is.gd/bsdstg – presentation is 187 pages long and is suited for live presentation while not the best for later ‘offline’ view.

I have created a unified version – https://is.gd/bsdstguni – with only 42 pages.

EOF

Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server – Redundant Backup

I brought up this topic in the past. It was in the form of more theoretical Silent Fanless FreeBSD Desktop/Server post and more hands-on Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server – DIY Backup article.

One of the comments after the latter was that I compared non-redundant backup solution (single disk) to redundant backup in the cloud. Today – as this is my main backup system – I would like to show you redundant backup solution with two disks in ZFS mirror along with real power usage measurements. This time I got ASRock J3355B-ITX motherboard with only 10W TDP which includes 2-core Celeron J3355 2.0-2.5 GHz CPU and small shiny REALAN H80 Mini ITX case. It looks very nice and comes from AliExpress at very low $33 price for new unit along with free shipping.

Build

Here is how the REALAN H80 case looks like.

realan-H80-render

The ASRock J3355B-ITX motherboard.

asrock-J3355B-ITX.jpg

Same as with the earlier build the internal Seagate BarraCuda 5TB 2.5 SATA drives costs about $200. The same Seagate Backup Plus 5TB 2.5 disk in external case with USB 3.0 port costs nearly half of that price – only $120 – at least in the Europe/Poland location. I took the decision to buy external ones and rip off their cases. That saved me about $160.

Here is the simple performance benchmark of these 2.5 disks.

% which pv
pv: aliased to pv -t -r -a -b -W -B 1048576

% pv < /dev/ada0 > /dev/null
1.35GiB 0:00:10 [ 137MiB/s] [ 137MiB/s]
^C

% dd if=/dev/ada0 of=/dev/null bs=8M
127+0 records in
127+0 records out
1065353216 bytes transferred in 7.494081 secs (142159287 bytes/sec)
^C

About 135MB/s per disk.

The ripped of parts of Seagate Backup Plus USB cases.

external-case-parts.jpg

What made me laugh was that as I got different cases colors (silver and gray) the disks inside also had different colors (green and blue) πŸ™‚

disks-bottom

… but their part number is the same, here they are mounted on a REALAN H80 disks holder.

disks-mounted

For the record – several REALAN H80 case real shots (not renders). First its front.

realan-H80-front

Back.

realan-H80-back.jpg

Side with USB port.

realan-H80-side-usb

Bottom.

realan-H80-bottom.jpg

Top.

realan-H80-top

Case parts.

realan-H80-parts.jpg

Generally the REALAN H80 looks really nice. Little lower REALAN H60 (without COM slots/holes in the back) looks even better but I wanted to make sure that I will have room and space for hot air in that case – as space was not a problem for me.

Cost

The complete price tops at $220 total. Here are the parts used.

PRICE  COMPONENT
  $49  CPU/Motherboard ASRock J3355B-ITX Mini-ITX
  $10  RAM 4GB DDR3
  $13  PSU 12V 7.5A 90W Pico (internal)
   $2  PSU 12V 2.5A 30W Leader Electronics (external)
  $33  Supermicro SC101i
   $3  SanDisk Fit 16GB USB 2.0 Drive (system)
 $120  Seagate 5TB 2.5 drive (ONE)
 $120  Seagate 5TB 2.5 drive (TWO)
 $350  TOTAL

That is $110 for the ‘system’ and additional $240 for ‘data’ drives.

Today I would probably get the ASRock N3150DC-ITX or Gigabyte GA-N3160TN motherboard instead because of builtin DC jack slot (compatible with 19V power adapter) on its back. This will eliminate the need for additional internal Pico PSU power supply …

The ASRock N3150DC-ITX with builtin DC jack.

asrock-N3150DC-ITX.jpg

The Gigabyte GA-N3160TN with builtin DC jack.

gigabyte-GA-N3160TN.jpg

The Gigabyte GA-N3160TN is also very low profile motherboard as you can see from the back.

gigabyte-GA-N3160TN-back-other.jpg

It may be good idea to use this one instead ASRock N3150DC-ITX to get more space above the motherboard.

PSU

As in the earlier Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server – DIY Backup article I used small 12V 2.5A 30W compact and cheap external PSU instead of the large 90W PSU from FSP Group. As these low power motherboard does not need a lot of power.

New Leader Electronics PSU label.

silent-backup-psu-ext-label.jpg

The internal power supply is Pico PSU which now tops as 12V 7.5A 90W power.

silent-backup-psu-pico-12V-90W.jpg

Power Consumption

I also measured the power consumption with power meter.

silent-backup-power-meter.jpg

The whole box with two Seagate BarraCuda 5TB 2.5 drives for data on ZFS mirror and SanDisk 16GB USB 2.0 system drive used about 10.4W in idle state.

I used all needed settings from my earlier The Power to Serve – FreeBSD Power Management article with CPU speed limited between 0.4GHz and 1.2GHz.

The powerd(8) settings in the /etc/rc.conf file are below.

powerd_flags="-n hiadaptive -a hiadaptive -b hiadaptive -m 400 -M 1200"

I used python(1) [1] to load the CPU and dd(8) to load the drives. I used dd(8) on the ZFS pool so 1 disk thread will read [2] and write [3] from/to both 2.5 disks. I temporary disabled LZ4 compression for the write tests.

[1] # echo '999999999999999999 ** 999999999999999999' | python
[2] # dd if=/dev/ada0 of=/dev/null bs=1M
[2] # dd if=/dev/ada1 of=/dev/null bs=1M
[3] # dd if=/dev/zero of=/data/FILE bs=1M
POWER   CPU LOAD         I/O LOAD
10.4 W  IDLE             IDLE
12.9 W  IDLE             1 DISK READ Thread(s)
14.3 W  IDLE             1 DISK READ Thread(s) + 1 DISK WRITE Thread(s)
17.2 W  IDLE             3 DISK READ Thread(s) + 3 DISK WRITE Thread(s)
11.0 W  8 CPU Thread(s)  IDLE
13.4 W  8 CPU Thread(s)  1 DISK READ Thread(s)
15.0 W  8 CPU Thread(s)  1 DISK READ Thread(s) + 1 DISK WRITE Thread(s)
17.8 W  8 CPU Thread(s)  3 DISK READ Thread(s) + 3 DISK WRITE Thread(s)

That’s not much remembering that 6W TDP power motherboard ASRock N3150B-ITX with just single Maxtor M3 4TB 2.5 USB 3.0 drive used 16.0W with CPU and I/O loaded. Only 1.8W more (on loaded system) with redundancy on two 2.5 disks.

Commands

The crypto FreeBSD kernel module was able to squeeze about 68MB/s of random data from /dev/random as this CPU has built in hardware AES-NI acceleration. Note to Linux users – the /dev/random and /dev/urandom are the same thing on FreeBSD. I used both dd(8) and pv(1) commands for this simple test. I made two tests with powerd(8) enabled and disabled to check the difference between CPU speed at 1.2GHz and at 2.5GHz with Turbo mode.

Full speed with Turbo enabled (note 2001 instead of 2000 for CPU frequency)..

# /etc/rc.d/powerd stop
Stopping powerd.
Waiting for PIDS: 1486.

% sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq
dev.cpu.0.freq: 2001

% which pv
pv: aliased to pv -t -r -a -b -W -B 1048576

% dd  /dev/null
1.91GiB 0:00:31 [68.7MiB/s] [68.1MiB/s]
265+0 records in
265+0 records out
2222981120 bytes transferred in 33.566154 secs (70226864 bytes/sec)
^C

CPU limited to 1.2GHz with powerd(8) daemon was able to squeeze about 24MB/s.

# service powerd start
Starting powerd.

% which pv
pv: aliased to pv -t -r -a -b -W -B 1048576

% dd  /dev/null
568MiB 0:00:23 [25.3MiB/s] [24.7MiB/s]
71+0 records in
71+0 records out
595591168 bytes transferred in 23.375588 secs (25479195 bytes/sec
^C

Below I will show you the data from dmesg(8) about the used USB and 2.5 drives.

The dmesg(8) information for the SanDisk Fit USB 2.0 16GB drive.

# grep da0 /var/run/dmesg.boot
da0 at umass-sim1 bus 1 scbus3 target 0 lun 0
da0:  Removable Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device
da0: Serial Number 4C530002030502100093
da0: 400.000MB/s transfers
da0: 14663MB (30031250 512 byte sectors)
da0: quirks=0x2

… and two Seagate BarraCuda 5TB 2.5 drives.

# grep ada /var/run/dmesg.boot
ada0 at ahcich0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
ada0:  ACS-3 ATA SATA 3.x device
ada0: Serial Number WCJ0DRJE
ada0: 600.000MB/s transfers (SATA 3.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)
ada0: Command Queueing enabled
ada0: 4769307MB (9767541168 512 byte sectors)
ada1 at ahcich1 bus 0 scbus1 target 0 lun 0
ada1:  ACS-3 ATA SATA 3.x device
ada1: Serial Number WCJ0213S
ada1: 600.000MB/s transfers (SATA 3.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)
ada1: Command Queueing enabled
ada1: 4769307MB (9767541168 512 byte sectors)

The whole /var/run/dmesg.boot content (without disks) is shown below.

# cat /var/run/dmesg.boot
Copyright (c) 1992-2018 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 11.2-RELEASE-p7 #0: Tue Dec 18 08:29:33 UTC 2018
    root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64
FreeBSD clang version 6.0.0 (tags/RELEASE_600/final 326565) (based on LLVM 6.0.0)
VT(vga): resolution 640x480
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J3355 @ 2.00GHz (1996.88-MHz K8-class CPU)
  Origin="GenuineIntel"  Id=0x506c9  Family=0x6  Model=0x5c  Stepping=9
  Features=0xbfebfbff
  Features2=0x4ff8ebbf
  AMD Features=0x2c100800
  AMD Features2=0x101
  Structured Extended Features=0x2294e283
  XSAVE Features=0xf
  VT-x: PAT,HLT,MTF,PAUSE,EPT,UG,VPID,VID,PostIntr
  TSC: P-state invariant, performance statistics
real memory  = 4294967296 (4096 MB)
avail memory = 3700518912 (3529 MB)
Event timer "LAPIC" quality 600
ACPI APIC Table: 
WARNING: L1 data cache covers less APIC IDs than a core
0 < 1
FreeBSD/SMP: Multiprocessor System Detected: 2 CPUs
FreeBSD/SMP: 1 package(s) x 2 core(s)
ioapic0  irqs 0-119 on motherboard
SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 1996877678 Hz quality 1000
random: entropy device external interface
kbd1 at kbdmux0
netmap: loaded module
module_register_init: MOD_LOAD (vesa, 0xffffffff80ff4580, 0) error 19
random: registering fast source Intel Secure Key RNG
random: fast provider: "Intel Secure Key RNG"
nexus0
vtvga0:  on motherboard
cryptosoft0:  on motherboard
acpi0:  on motherboard
unknown: I/O range not supported
cpu0:  on acpi0
cpu1:  on acpi0
attimer0:  port 0x40-0x43,0x50-0x53 irq 0 on acpi0
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
Event timer "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 100
atrtc0:  port 0x70-0x77 on acpi0
atrtc0: Warning: Couldn't map I/O.
atrtc0: registered as a time-of-day clock, resolution 1.000000s
Event timer "RTC" frequency 32768 Hz quality 0
hpet0:  iomem 0xfed00000-0xfed003ff irq 8 on acpi0
Timecounter "HPET" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 950
Event timer "HPET" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 550
Event timer "HPET1" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET2" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET3" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET4" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET5" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET6" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Timecounter "ACPI-fast" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 900
acpi_timer0:  port 0x408-0x40b on acpi0
pcib0:  port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0:  on pcib0
vgapci0:  port 0xf000-0xf03f mem 0x90000000-0x90ffffff,0x80000000-0x8fffffff irq 19 at device 2.0 on pci0
vgapci0: Boot video device
hdac0:  mem 0x91210000-0x91213fff,0x91000000-0x910fffff irq 25 at device 14.0 on pci0
pci0:  at device 15.0 (no driver attached)
ahci0:  port 0xf090-0xf097,0xf080-0xf083,0xf060-0xf07f mem 0x91214000-0x91215fff,0x91218000-0x912180ff,0x91217000-0x912177ff irq 19 at device 18.0 on pci0
ahci0: AHCI v1.31 with 2 6Gbps ports, Port Multiplier supported
ahcich0:  at channel 0 on ahci0
ahcich1:  at channel 1 on ahci0
pcib1:  irq 22 at device 19.0 on pci0
pci1:  on pcib1
pcib2:  irq 20 at device 19.2 on pci0
pci2:  on pcib2
re0:  port 0xe000-0xe0ff mem 0x91104000-0x91104fff,0x91100000-0x91103fff irq 20 at device 0.0 on pci2
re0: Using 1 MSI-X message
re0: Chip rev. 0x4c000000
re0: MAC rev. 0x00000000
miibus0:  on re0
rgephy0:  PHY 1 on miibus0
rgephy0:  none, 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 10baseT-FDX-flow, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 100baseTX-FDX-flow, 1000baseT-FDX, 1000baseT-FDX-master, 1000baseT-FDX-flow, 1000baseT-FDX-flow-master, auto, auto-flow
re0: Using defaults for TSO: 65518/35/2048
re0: Ethernet address: 70:85:c2:3f:53:41
re0: netmap queues/slots: TX 1/256, RX 1/256
xhci0:  mem 0x91200000-0x9120ffff irq 17 at device 21.0 on pci0
xhci0: 32 bytes context size, 64-bit DMA
usbus0 on xhci0
usbus0: 5.0Gbps Super Speed USB v3.0
isab0:  at device 31.0 on pci0
isa0:  on isab0
acpi_button0:  on acpi0
acpi_tz0:  on acpi0
atkbdc0:  at port 0x60,0x64 on isa0
atkbd0:  irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
ppc0: cannot reserve I/O port range
est0:  on cpu0
est1:  on cpu1
ZFS filesystem version: 5
ZFS storage pool version: features support (5000)
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
hdacc0:  at cad 0 on hdac0
hdaa0:  at nid 1 on hdacc0
ugen0.1:  at usbus0
uhub0:  on usbus0
pcm0:  at nid 21 and 24,26 on hdaa0
pcm1:  at nid 20 and 25 on hdaa0
pcm2:  at nid 27 on hdaa0
hdacc1:  at cad 2 on hdac0
hdaa1:  at nid 1 on hdacc1
pcm3:  at nid 3 on hdaa1
uhub0: 15 ports with 15 removable, self powered
ugen0.2:  at usbus0
uhub1 on uhub0
uhub1:  on usbus0
uhub1: 4 ports with 4 removable, self powered
Trying to mount root from zfs:zroot/ROOT/default []...
random: unblocking device.
re0: link state changed to DOWN

ZFS Pool Configuration

To get higher LZ4 compression ratio I use larger blocksize (1MB) on this ZFS mirror pool. Here is the ZFS pool status.

% zpool status data
  pool: data
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 44h14m with 0 errors on Mon Feb 11 07:13:42 2019
config:

        NAME                STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        data                ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-0          ONLINE       0     0     0
            label/WCJ0213S  ONLINE       0     0     0
            label/WCJ0DRJE  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

I get 4% compression (1.04x) on that ZFS pool. Its about 80% filled with lots of movies and photos so while such compression ratio may not be great it gives a lot of space. For example 4% of 4TB of data is about 160GB of ‘free’ space.

% zfs get compressratio data
NAME                                    PROPERTY       VALUE  SOURCE
data                                    compressratio  1.04x  -

Here is the ZFS pool configuration.

# zpool history
History for 'data':
2018-11-12.01:18:33 zpool create data mirror /dev/label/WCJ0229Z /dev/label/WCJ0DPHF
2018-11-12.01:19:11 zfs set mountpoint=none data
2018-11-12.01:19:16 zfs set compression=lz4 data
2018-11-12.01:19:21 zfs set atime=off data
2018-11-12.01:19:34 zfs set primarycache=metadata data
2018-11-12.01:19:40 zfs set secondarycache=metadata data
2018-11-12.01:19:45 zfs set redundant_metadata=most data
2018-11-12.01:19:51 zfs set recordsize=1m data
(...)

We do not need redundant_metadata as we already have two disks, its useful only on single disks configurations.

Self Solution Cost

As in the earlier post I will again calculate how much energy this server would consume. Currently 1kWh of power costs about $0.20 in Europe/Poland (rounded up). This means that running computer with 1000W power usage for 1 hour would cost you $0.20 on electricity bill. This system uses 10.4W idle and 12.9W when single disk read occurs. For most of the time server will be idle so I assume 11.0W average for the pricing purposes.

That would cost us $0.0022 for 11.0W device running for 1 hour.

Below you will also find calculations for 1 day (24x multiplier), 1 year (another 365.25x multiplier) and 3 years (another 3x multiplier).

   COST  TIME
$0.0022  1 HOUR(s)
$0.0528  1 DAY(s)
$19.285  1 YEAR(s)
$57.856  3 YEAR(s)
$96.426  5 YEAR(s)

Combining that with server cost ($350) we get TCO for our self hosted 5TB storage service.

   COST  TIME
$369.29  1 YEAR(s)
$407.86  3 YEAR(s)
$446.43  5 YEAR(s)

Our total 3 years TCO is $407.86 and 5 years is $446.43. Its for running system non-stop. We can also implement features like Wake On LAN to limit that power usage even more.

Cloud Storage Prices

This time after searching for cheapest cloud based storage I found these services.

  • Amazon Drive
  • Amazon S3 Glacier Storage
  • Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
  • Google One
  • Dropbox Basic

Here is its cost summarized for 1 year period for 5TB of data.

PRICE  TIME       SERVICE
 $300  1 YEAR(s)  Amazon Drive
 $310  1 YEAR(s)  Google One
 $240  1 YEAR(s)  Amazon S3 Glacier Storage
 $450  1 YEAR(s)  Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
 $360  1 YEAR(s)  Dropbox Basic

For the Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage I assumed average between upload/download price because upload is two times cheaper then download.

Here is its cost summarized for 3 year period for 5TB of data.

PRICE  TIME       SERVICE
 $900  3 YEAR(s)  Amazon Drive
 $930  3 YEAR(s)  Google One
 $720  3 YEAR(s)  Amazon S3 Glacier Storage
$1350  3 YEAR(s)  Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
$1080  3 YEAR(s)  Dropbox Basic

Here is its cost summarized for 5 year period for 5TB of data.

PRICE  TIME       SERVICE
$1500  5 YEAR(s)  Amazon Drive
$1550  5 YEAR(s)  Google One
$1200  5 YEAR(s)  Amazon S3 Glacier Storage
$2250  5 YEAR(s)  Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
$1800  5 YEAR(s)  Dropbox Basic

Now lets compare costs of our own server to various cloud services.

If we would run our server for just 1 year the price will be similar.

PRICE  TIME       SERVICE
 $369  1 YEAR(s)  Self Build NAS
 $300  1 YEAR(s)  Amazon Drive
 $310  1 YEAR(s)  Google One
 $240  1 YEAR(s)  Amazon S3 Glacier Storage
 $450  1 YEAR(s)  Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
 $360  1 YEAR(s)  Dropbox Basic

It gets interesting when we compare 3 years costs. Its two times cheaper to self host our own server then use cloud services. One may argue that clouds are located in many places but even if we would buy two such boxes and put one – for example in our friends place at Jamaica – or other parts of the world.

PRICE  TIME       SERVICE
 $408  3 YEAR(s)  Self Build NAS
 $528  3 YEAR(s)  Self Build NAS (assuming one of the drives failed)
 $900  3 YEAR(s)  Amazon Drive
 $930  3 YEAR(s)  Google One
 $720  3 YEAR(s)  Amazon S3 Glacier Storage
$1350  3 YEAR(s)  Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
$1080  3 YEAR(s)  Dropbox Basic

… but with 5 years using cloud service instead of self hosted NAS solution is 3-5 times more expensive … and these were the cheapest cloud services I was able to find.

PRICE  TIME       SERVICE
 $447  5 YEAR(s)  Self Build NAS
 $567  5 YEAR(s)  Self Build NAS (assuming one of the drives failed)
$1500  5 YEAR(s)  Amazon Drive
$1550  5 YEAR(s)  Google One
$1200  5 YEAR(s)  Amazon S3 Glacier Storage
$2250  5 YEAR(s)  Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
$1800  5 YEAR(s)  Dropbox Basic

… and ‘anywhere’ access is not an argument for cloud services because you can get external IP address for you NAS or use Dynamic DNS – for free. You may also wonder why I compare such ‘full featured NAS’ with S3 storage … well with rclone (rsync for cloud storage) you are able to synchronize your files with almost anything πŸ™‚

Not to mention how much more privacy you have with keeping all your data to yourself … but that is priceless.

You can also setup a lot more services on such hardware – like FreeNAS with Bhyve/Jails virtualization … or Nextcloud instance … or Syncthing … while cloud storage is only that – a storage in the cloud.

Summary

Not sure what else could I include in this article. If you have an idea what else could I cover then let me know.

EOF

FreeBSD Desktop – Part 2.1 – Install FreeBSD 12

This article is an update/rewrite to the already published FreeBSD Desktop – Part 2 – Install. With the upcoming introduction of the FreeBSD 12.0-RELESE version new possibilities arise when it comes to installation. I already talked/showed that method in my ZFS Boot Environments Reloaded at NLUUG presentation but to make it more available and obvious part of my FreeBSD Desktop series I write about it again in dedicated article entry.

You may want to check other articles in the FreeBSD Desktop series on the FreeBSD Desktop – Global Page where you will find links to all episodes of the series along with table of contents for each episode’s contents.

Now (in FreeBSD 12.x) it is possible to install FreeBSD on GELI encrypted root on ZFS pool without any additional partitions or filesystems. No longer separate UFS or ZFS boot pool /boot filesystem is needed. And what is even more appealing such setup is supported both on UEFI and BIOS (also refereed as Legacy or CSM) systems. Such setup is also compatible with both new bectl(8) utility and the old proven beadm(8) tool. It is also nice that to make such setup you only need to choose the Auto ZFS option from the bsdinstall(8) so you will not have to do it by hand. I advice using GPT (BIOS+UEFI) as it will support both system types so when you are running BIOS system now and will move the disk to other system that boots with UEFI it will also just work out of the box.

The FreeBSD 12.0 is currently at the RC1 stage so we will use that one for below examples of such setup. The 12.0-RELEASE is expected to arise before Christmas if no significant problems or bugs will be found on the road to RC2 and RC3 editions.

For the record here is the FreeBSD 12.0-RC1 Availability information page and aggregated FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE Release Notes for the upcoming new major FreeBSD version, but it is not yet complete/ready.

I will only show one install process that will work for both UEFI and BIOS systems – the crucial option here is GPT (BIOS+UEFI) to select (which is also the default one). The other option that You need to select is Yes for the Encryption part and also select the SWAP size. You may as well do not use swap and enter ‘0‘ here which means that SWAP partition will not be created. You may as well create ZFS ZVOL partition for SWAP on ZFS pool later or just create a file like /SWAP and enable it as SWAP. No matter which SWAP option you will choose if your system swaps then you are too low on memory and neither of these methods are better or worse then.

freebsd-install-01.png

freebsd-install-02.png

freebsd-install-03.png

One last thing about the default FreeBSD (no matter if 11.x or 12.x) ZFS dataset/filesystem layout. I showed it on my ZFS Boot Environments/ZFS Boot Environments Reloaded presentations but without any text comment as I talked it live.

By default both /var and /usr filesystems are part of the Boot Environment. They are protected and snapshoted during the beadm create newbe process (or by bectl(8) also). Its appears that /var and /usr are separate processes when you type zfs list commend as shown on the slide below.

zroot-layout-01.png

… but when you check the canmount parameter for all ZFS datasets, then it become obvious that /usr and /var are ’empty’ datasets (not mounted).

zroot-layout-02.png

… and also confirmation from theΒ df(1) tool.

zroot-layout-03.png

I asked FreeBSD Developers what is the reason for such construct and its for the mountpoint inheritance purposes. For example when zroot/usr has mountpoint set to /usr then when you create zroot/usr/local dataset, then it will automatically get the /usr/local for the mountpoint parameter by inheritance. At the first sight it may be misleading (I also got caught) but it makes sense when you think about it.

The only filesystems that are NOT included for the Boot Environment protection are these:

  • /usr/home
  • /usr/ports
  • /usr/src
  • /var/audit
  • /var/crash
  • /var/log
  • /var/mail
  • /var/tmp

While in most cases it is not needed to protect these in the Boot Environment protection if you want to also protect these type these two comments to move all the /usr/* and /var/* datasets/filesystems into the Boot Environment pool/ROOT/dataset. It will work on a running system without need for reboot, just make sure you use -u flag.

# zfs rename -u zroot/usr zroot/ROOT/default/usr
# zfs rename -u zroot/var zroot/ROOT/default/var

Now grab that FreeBSD ISO and install it the best possible way up to date πŸ™‚

You will probably want to get amd64 version which is suitable for both 64-bit AMD and Intel systems.

EOF

Β 

My FreeBSD Story

As Roman Zolotarev asked if I would write an entry for his Tell Your BSD Story page I could not refuse. That page was available at the https://www.bsdjobs.com/people/hi.html URL but seems that Roman abandoned the bsdjobs.com domain unfortunately. I really tried to make it short and small but I guess its not that straight πŸ™‚

My first devices/computers/consoles (not at the same time) that I remember were Atari 2600 and Pegasus console which was hardware clone of the Nintendo NES.

atari-2600.png

Back then I did not even knew that it was Atari 2600 as I referred to it as Video Computer System … and I did not even knew any english by then. It took me about two decades to get to know (by accident) that this Video Computer System was Atari 2600 πŸ™‚

This equipment was used for playing computer games only.

Then I got AMIGA 600 computer (or should I say my parents bought it for me) which served both for playing computer games and also other activities for the first time. AMIGA is the computer that had the greatest influence on me, as it was the first time I studied the books about Amiga Workbench operating system and learned commands from Amiga Shell terminal. I loved the idea of Ram Disk icon/directory on the desktop that allowed me to transparently put any things in system memory. I still miss that concept on today’s desktop systems … and I still remember how dismal I was when I watched Amiga Deathbed Vigil movie.

amiga-600.png

At the end of 1998 I got my first PC that of course came with Windows and that computer served both as gaming machine and as well as typical tool. One time I dig into the internals with Windows Registry (which left me disgusted by its concepts and implementation) and its limited command line interface provided by CMD.EXE executable. I remember that the heart of this box was not the CPU or the motherboard but the graphics accelerator – the legendary 3Dfx Voodoo card. This company (3Dfx) – their attitude and philosophy – also left solid fingerprint on my way. Like AMIGA did.

Hence how the top of my laptop looks like now πŸ™‚

laptop.jpg

Some games was even released as special edition with the only feature being support for the 3Dfx Glide driver like Need for Speed II: Special Edition.

nfs.jpg

After ‘migration’ from AMIGA to PC it never again ‘felt right’. The games were cool but the Windows system was horrible. Time has passed and different Windows versions and hardware modifications took place. Windows XP felt really heavy at that time, not to mention Windows 2000 for example with even bigger hardware requirements. I also do not understand all the hate about Windows ME. It crashed with the same frequency as Windows 98 or later Windows 98 Second Edition but maybe my hardware was different πŸ™‚

windowsme.png

I do not have any ‘mine’ screenshots from that period as I lost all my 40 GB (huge then) drive of data when I moved/resized the partition with Partition Magic to get some more space from the less filled C: drive. That day I learned hard that “there are people who do backups and people who will do backups”. I never lost data again as I had multiple copies of my data, but the same as Netheril fall the lost data was was gone forever.

I always followed various alternatives which led me to try Linux in 2003, after reading about various distributions philosophies I decided to run Slackware Linux with KDE 3. My buddy used Aurox Linux by then (one of the few Linux distributions from Poland) and encouraged me to do the same – especially in the context of fixing possible problems as he already knew it and also as he recently dumped Windows system. But Slackware sounded like a better idea so I took that path instead. At first I dual booted between Windows XP and Slackware Linux cause I had everything worked out on the Windows world while I often felt helpless in the Linux world, so I would reboot into Windows to play some games or find a solution for Linux problem if that was required. I remember how strange the concept of dual clipboards (PRIMARY and SECONDARY) was for me by then. I was amazed why ‘so much better’ system as Linux (at least marketed that way) needs a system tray program to literally manage the clipboard. On Windows it was obvious, you do [CTRL]+[C] to copy and [CTRL]+[V] to paste things, but on Linux there (no I know its X11 feature) there were two clipboards that were synchronized by this little system tray program from KDE 3. It was also unthinkable for me that I will ‘lost’ contents of last/recent [CTRL]+[C] operation if I close the application from which the copy was made. I settled down a little on Slackware but not for long. I really did not liked manual dependency management for packages for example. Also KDE 3 was really ugly and despite trying all possible options I was not able to tweak it into something nice looking.

After half a year on Slackware I checked the Linux distributions again and decided to try Gentoo Linux. I definitely agree with the image below which visualizes Gentoo Linux experience, especially when You install it for he first time πŸ™‚

gentoo-fly

Of course I went with the most hardcore version with self building Stage 1 (compiler and toolchain) which was horrible idea at that time because compilation on slow single core machine took forever … but after many hours I got Gentoo installed. I now have to decide which desktop environment to use. I have read a lot of good news about Fluxbox at that time so this is what I tried. It was very weird experience (to create everything in GUI from scratch) but very pleasant one. That recalled me the times of AMIGA … but Linux came in the way too much often. The more I dig into Gentoo Linux the more I read that lots of Gentoo features are based on FreeBSD solutions. Gentoo Portage is a clone of FreeBSD Ports. That ‘central’ /etc/rc.conf system configuration file concept was taken from FreeBSD as well. So I started to gather information about FreeBSD. The (then) FreeBSD website or FreeBSD Ports site (still) felt little outdated to say the least but that did not discouraged me.

Somewhere in 2005 I installed FreeBSD 5.4 on my computer. The beginnings were hard, like the earlier step with Gentoo but similarly like Gentoo the FreeBSD project came with a lot of great documentation. While Gentoo documentation is concentrated within various Gentoo Wiki sites the FreeBSD project comes with ‘official’ documentation in the form of Handbook and FAQ. I remember my first questions at the now nonexistent BSDForums.org site – for example one of the first ones – how to scroll the terminal output in the plain console. I now know that I had to push Scroll Lock button but it was something totally new for me.

How BSDForums.org looked like.

bsdforums.png

This is the earliest screenshot I got from that period, and Gentoo setup looked very similar.

vermaden-2005.11.08.jpg

Why FreeBSD and not OpenBSD or NetBSD? Probably because Gentoo based most their concepts on the FreeBSD solutions, so that led me to FreeBSD instead of the other BSD operating systems. Currently I still use FreeBSD but I keep an steady eye on the OpenBSD, HardenedBSD and DragonFly BSD solutions and improvements.

As the migration path from Linux to FreeBSD is a lot easier – all configuration files from /home can be just copied – the migration was quite fast easy. I again had the Fluxbox configuration which I used on the Gentoo. Now – on FreeBSD – it started to fell even more like AMIGA times. Everything is/has been well thought and had its place and reason. The documentation was good and the FreeBSD Community was second to none.

I even decided to upgrade the hardware to something more exotic. I got Gigabyte-GA-7DPXDW server motherboard with dual CPU sockets – and as Athlon XP (desktop) processors were very easily modified to ‘be’ Athlon MP (server) ones I got also the second one along with 1 GB of ECC RAM.

gigabyte-GA-7DPXDW.jpg

This dual CPU setup – quite unusual at these times – server me very well. I switched from nvidia binary blob driver to software but open nv because nvidia would break my uptime every several days πŸ™‚

I accumulated 30 days of uptime on that desktop box, not bad for a system without any emergency UPS πŸ™‚

uptime-vermaden.png

This was also the last time I used ECC RAM on FreeBSD (at least on my boxes) while ZFS did not even existed on FreeBSD πŸ™‚ But as time flied I started to feel the need for something faster. As I also got interested in Intel graphics card I got the new motherboard with fastest Intel graphics card available then – as silly as it sounds – the Asus P5B-V with Intel X3000 GMA … and that was a terrible idea because FreeBSD graphics stack supported all the Intel graphics cards instead of that one. At the beginning I used software vesa driver but the problem was not the performance of the driver (as I also had quad core Intel Q6600 CPU) but the resolution on the screen. As I got 1280 x 1024 screen by then using limited 1024 x 768 was real PITA. I decided that I will try something else then FreeBSD will Intel X3000 support finally arrives. I needed to do something fast as I also needed to write my Masters Thesis at that time.

That was in the middle of 2007. I wanted to try the other end of the Linux distributions spectrum. Ubuntu. I could not go more ‘desktop’ way πŸ™‚ It of course installed gently with GNOME 2 environment and pulseaudio already unfortunately existed. As I preferred to run my computer all the time back then (I did not payed the electricity bills) there were several things that annoyed my very much. For example the mentioned pulseaudio – the sound freezed after one-two days of using the computer (even if I did not played any music or videos) and it stayed that way. I could restart pulseaudio or reload the ALSA modules but it stayed in this SUSFU state (situation unchanged still fucked up) until reboot. As I needed to finish my Masters Thesis I did not had time to reinstall into something else as pulseaudio will be probably similarly broken on other Linux distributions and FreeBSD was still lacking the Intel X3000 GMA support. Generally GNOME 2 experience was not bad but I really missed all my custom settings, keyboard shortcuts and customized behavior. I remained in pain on the Ubuntu for two months – to the time I have finished my Masters Thesis about Operating Systems’ Virtualization which you can download and read but its in Polish so use translator if needed πŸ™‚

This is how Ubuntu looked back then.

ubuntu.jpg

I also had ‘side’ journey to the Mac wonderland as I got opportunity to use Macbook Pro with Mac OS X Leopard for a year. That allowed me to get real ‘feel’ of the Mac ecosystem and their hardware (and philosophy) so I will not repeat same stereotypes over and over again like a lot of anti-apple people. But after I switched back to FreeBSD system at work it just felt better. I used Terminal.app on Mac a lot but the xterm(1) at FreeBSD just felt more natural.

What makes me laugh now that I created Mac styled Fluxbox themes years till I got to run Mac and I still like Mac OS X look from the Leopard times.

vermaden-2007.10.14-mac.png

There was time on which I also played with Solaris (and later OpenSolaris). I must admit that there was time when Solaris so called Java Desktop based on GNOME 2 was really looking good. It was so good that only Mac OS X could only rival it for the best looking os by then.

solaris-10-GNOME-2-java-desktop.png

I really liked Solaris concepts and solutions like Zones and ZFS, also Crossbow, Comstar or IPS (FreeBSD did not had PNGng by then). But I always got problem with ‘desktop’ software. While I had everything in the FreeBSD Ports – almost the same amount of applications that is available on Linux – there was always some applications lacking in the Solaris world.

The Solaris ‘journey’ also left print on my soul so my Fluxbox themes went into Solaris style πŸ™‚

vermaden-2007.07.30-solaris-java-fluxbox-system.png

After the Ubuntu fiasco I got other motherboard as FreeBSD still did not supported Intel GMA X3000 card and settled in the FreeBSD land again. What a relief it was after this pulseaudio nonsense. In the meantime as I read a lot of good experiences about Openbox I decided to try it out instead of Fluxbox. It was strange feeling to mess with XML configuration files at the beginning but as I got used to it and ordered the rc.xml and menu.xml configuration files properly it was not a problem. Since then I used FreeBSD on different machines including physical servers, virtual machines and laptops. I learned that adequate supported hardware is the most important factor in FreeBSD ecosystem.

I still use Openbox and still use FreeBSD today and my desktop looks like that one below.

vermaden-NOW.jpg

After 15 years of using various Windows, UNIX (macOS/AIX/HP-UX/Solaris/OpenSolaris/Illumos/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD) and UNIX-like (Linux) systems I always come to conclusion that FreeBSD is the system that sucks least. And sucks least with each release and one day I will write why FreeBSD is such great operating system … if I already haven’t πŸ™‚

UPDATE 1

As Roman Zolotarev got a moment he added my story to his Tell Your BSD Story page. That page was available at the https://www.bsdjobs.com/people/ URL but seems that Roman abandoned the bsdjobs.com domain unfortunately.

Thanks Roman!

You may check it for yourself at Slawomir Wojciech Wojtczak (vermaden) runs FreeBSD page.

EOF

Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server – DIY Backup

I already once wrote about this topic at the Silent Fanless FreeBSD Desktop/Server article. To my pleasant surprise BSD NOW Episode 253: Silence of the Fans featured my article for which I am very grateful. Today I would like to show another practical example of such setup and with more hands on approach along with real power usage measurements with power meter. I also got more power efficient ASRock N3150B-ITX motherboard with only 6W TDP which includes 4-core Celeron N3150 CPU and also nice small Supermicro SC101i Mini ITX case. Keep in mind that ASRock also made very similar N3150-ITX motherboard (no ‘B’ in model name) with different ports/connectors that may better suit your needs better.

You may also check the follow up Silent Fanless FreeBSD Server – Redundant Backup article.

Build

Here is how the Supermicro SC101i case looks like with ASRock N3150B-ITX motherboard installed.

silent-backup-case-external.jpg

silent-backup-case-back.jpg

One thing that surprised me very much was the hard disk cost. The internal Seagate 4TB ST4000LM024 2.5 SATA drive costs about $180-190 but the same disk sold as Maxtor M3 4TB 2.5 disk in external case with Maxtor brand (which is owned by Seagate anyway) and USB 3.0 port costs half of that – about $90-100. At least in Europe/Poland location.

I think you do already know where I am going with my thoughts. I will use an external Maxtor M3 4TB 2.5 drive and connect it via the USB 3.0 port in this setup. While SATA III provides theoretical throughput of 6Gbps the USB 3.0 provides 5Gbps theoretical throughput. The difference can be important for low latency high throughput SSD drives that approach 580MB/s speed but not for traditional rotational disks moving gently at 5400RPM.

The maximum performance I was able to squeeze from this Maxtor M3 4TB 2.5 USB 3.0 drive was 90MB/s write speed and 120MB/s read speed using pv(1) tool, and that was at the beginning of the disk. These speeds will drop to about 70MB/s and 90MB/s at the end of the disk respectively for write and read operations. We are not even approaching SATA I standard here which tops at 1.5Gbps. Thus it will not make a difference or not a significant one for sure for such storage.

At first I wanted to make a hole on the motherboard end steel plate (somewhere beside the back ports) with drill to get outside with USB cable from the case and attach it to one of the USB 3.0 ports at the back of the motherboard but fortunately I got better idea. This motherboard has connector for internal USB 3.0 (so called front panel USB on the case) so I bought Akyga AK-CA-57 front panel cable with USB 3.0 port and connected everything inside the case.

This is the Akyga AK-CA-57 USB 3.0 cable.

silent-backup-usb-akyga-cable-AK-CA-57.jpg

If I was going to install two USB 3.0 disks using this method I would use one of these cables instead:

The only problem can be more physical one – will it blend will it fit? Fortunately I was able to find a way to fit it in the case and there is even space for the second disk. As this will be my offsite backup replacement which is only 3rd stage/offsite backup I do not need to create redundant mirror/RAID1 protection but it’s definitely possible with two Maxtor M3 4TB 2.5 USB 3.0 drives.

The opened Supermicro SC101i case with ASRock N3150B-ITX motherboard inside and attached Pico PSU looks like that.

silent-backup-mobo-case.jpg

With attached Akyga AK-CA-57 USB 3.0 cable things get little narrow, but with proper cable lay you will still be able to fit another internal 2.5 SATA disk or external 2.5 USB 3.0 disk.

silent-backup-mobo-case-blue.jpg

I attached Akyga AK-CA-57 cable to this USB 3.0 connector on the motherboard.

silent-backup-mobo-case-usb.jpg

Case with Maxtor M3 4TB disk. The disk placement required little modifications.

silent-backup-mobo-case-blue-disk.jpg

I created custom disk holders using steel plates I got from window mosquito net set for my home but you should be able to get something similar in any hardware shop. I modified them a little with pliers.

silent-backup-handles

I also ‘silenced’ the disk vibrations with felt stickers.

silent-backup-silence.jpg

The silenced disk in the Supermicro SC101i case.

silent-backup-mobo-case-blue-disk-silence.jpg

Ancestor

Before this setup I used Raspberry Pi 2B with external Western Digital 2TB 2.5 USB 3.0 disk but the storage space requirements become larger so I needed to increase that. It was of course with GELI encryption and ZFS with enabled LZ4 compression on top. The four humble ARM32 cores and soldered 1GB of RAM was able to squeeze whooping 5MB/s read/write experience from this ZFS/GELI setup but that was not hurting me as I used rsync(1) for differential backups and the Internet connection to that box was limited to about 1.5MB/s. I would still use that setup but it just won’t boot with that larger Maxtor M3 4TB disk because it requires more power and I already used stronger 5V 3.1A charger then 5V 2.0A suggested by vendor. Even the safe_mode_gpio=4 and max_usb_current=1 options at /boot/msdos/config.txt did not help.

Cost

The complete setup price tops at $220 total. Here are the parts used.

PRICE  COMPONENT
  $59  CPU/Motherboard ASRock N3150B-ITX Mini-ITX
  $14  RAM Crucial 4GB DDR3L 1.35V
  $13  PSU 12V 7.5A 90W Pico (internal)
   $2  PSU 12V 2.5A 30W Leader Electronics (external)
  $29  Supermicro SC101i (used)
   $3  Akyga AK-CA-57 USB 3.0 Cable
   $3  SanDisk Fit 16GB USB 2.0 Drive (system)
  $95  Maxtor M3 4TB 2.5 USB 3.0 Drive (data)
 $220  TOTAL

PSU

In earlier Silent Fanless FreeBSD Desktop/Server article I used quite large 90W PSU from FSP Group. From the PSUs that I owned only ThinkPad W520/W530 bricks can compete in size with this beast. As this motherboard will use very little power (details lower) it will require a lot smaller PSU. As the FSP Group PSU has IEC C14 slot it also requires additional IEC C13 power cable which makes it even bigger solution. The new 12V 2.5A 30W is very compact and also costs fraction of the 90W FSP Group gojira.

New Leader Electronics PSU label.

silent-backup-psu-ext-label.jpg

Below you can see the comparison for yourself.

silent-backup-psu-compare

I also got cheaper and less powerful Pico PSU which now tops as 12V 7.5A 90W power.

silent-backup-psu-pico-12V-90W.jpg

Power Consumption

This is where it gets really interesting. I measured the power consumption with power meter.

silent-backup-power-meter.jpg

Idle

When this box is booted without any media attached it uses only 7.5W of power idling. While the system was idle with SanDisk 16GB USB 2.0 drive (on which FreeBSD was installed) it used about 8.0W of power. When booted with Maxtor M3 4TB disk inside and SanDisk 16GB USB 2.0 drive attached it run idle at about 8.5W of power.

Load

As I do not need full CPU speed I limited the CPU speed in powerd(8) options to 1.2Ghz. With this limit set the fully loaded system with all 4 cores busy at 100% and two dd(8) processes for read both boot SanDisk 16GB drive and Maxtor M3 4TB disk and with GELI enabled ZFS pool doing scrub operation in progress and additional two find(1) processes for both disks it would not pass the 13.9W barrier. Without CPU limitation (that means Intel Turbo Boost enabled) the system used 16.0W of power at most.

Summary of power usage for this box.

 POWER  TYPE  CONFIGURATION
 7.5 W  IDLE  System
 8.0 W  IDLE  System + SanDisk 16GB drive
 8.5 W  IDLE  System + SanDisk 16GB drive + Maxtor M3 4TB drive + CPU 1.2 Ghz limit
 8.5 W  IDLE  System + SanDisk 16GB drive + Maxtor M3 4TB drive
13.9 W  LOAD  System + SanDisk 16GB drive + Maxtor M3 4TB drive + CPU 1.2 Ghz limit
16.0 W  LOAD  System + SanDisk 16GB drive + Maxtor M3 4TB drive

For comparision the Raspberry Pi 2B with 16GB MicroSD card attached used only 1.5W but we all know how slow it is. When used with Western Digital 2TB 2.5 USB 3.0 drive it used about 2.2W at idle state.

Configuration for Low Power Consumption

Below are FreeBSD configuration files used in this box to lower the power consumption.

The /etc/sysctl.conf file.

# ANNOYING THINGS
  vfs.usermount=1
  kern.coredump=0
  hw.syscons.bell=0
  kern.vt.enable_bell=0

# LIMIT ZFS ARC EFFICIENTLY
  kern.maxvnodes=32768

# ALLOW UPGRADES IN JAILS
  security.jail.chflags_allowed=1

# ALLOW RAW SOCKETS IN JAILS
  security.jail.param.allow.raw_sockets=1
  security.jail.allow_raw_sockets=1

# RANDOM PID
  kern.randompid=12345

# PERFORMANCE/ALL SHARED MEMORY SEGMENTS WILL BE MAPPED TO UNPAGEABLE RAM 
  kern.ipc.shm_use_phys=1

# MEMORY OVERCOMMIT SEE tuning(7)
  vm.overcommit=2

# NETWORK/DO NOT SEND RST ON SEGMENTS TO CLOSED PORTS
  net.inet.tcp.blackhole=2

# NETWORK/DO NOT SEND PORT UNREACHABLES FOR REFUSED CONNECTS
  net.inet.udp.blackhole=1

# NETWORK/ENABLE SCTP BLACKHOLING blackhole(4) FOR MORE DETAILS
  net.inet.sctp.blackhole=1

# NETWORK/MAX SIZE OF AUTOMATIC RECEIVE BUFFER (2097152) [4x]
  net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_max=8388608

# NETWORK/MAX SIZE OF AUTOMATIC SEND BUFFER (2097152) [4x]
  net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_max=8388608

# NETWORK/MAXIMUM SOCKET BUFFER SIZE (5242880) [3.2x]
  kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=16777216

# NETWORK/MAXIMUM LISTEN SOCKET PENDING CONNECTION ACCEPT QUEUE SIZE (128) [8x]
  kern.ipc.soacceptqueue=1024

# NETWORK/DEFAULT tcp MAXIMUM SEGMENT SIZE (536) [2.7x]
  net.inet.tcp.mssdflt=1460

# NETWORK/MINIMUM TCP MAXIMUM SEGMENT SIZE (216) [6x]
  net.inet.tcp.minmss=1300

# NETWORK/LIMIT ON SYN/ACK RETRANSMISSIONS (3)
  net.inet.tcp.syncache.rexmtlimit=0

# NETWORK/USE TCP SYN COOKIES IF THE SYNCACHE OVERFLOWS (1)
  net.inet.tcp.syncookies=0

# NETWORK/ENABLE TCP SEGMENTATION OFFLOAD (1)
  net.inet.tcp.tso=0

# NETWORK/ENABLE IP OPTIONS PROCESSING ([LS]SRR, RR, TS) (1)
  net.inet.ip.process_options=0

# NETWORK/ASSIGN RANDOM ip_id VALUES (0)
  net.inet.ip.random_id=1

# NETWORK/ENABLE SENDING IP REDIRECTS (1)
  net.inet.ip.redirect=0

# NETWORK/IGNORE ICMP REDIRECTS (0)
  net.inet.icmp.drop_redirect=1

# NETWORK/ASSUME SO_KEEPALIVE ON ALL TCP CONNECTIONS (1)
  net.inet.tcp.always_keepalive=0

# NETWORK/DROP TCP PACKETS WITH SYN+FIN SET (0)
  net.inet.tcp.drop_synfin=1

# NETWORK/RECYCLE CLOSED FIN_WAIT_2 CONNECTIONS FASTER (0)
  net.inet.tcp.fast_finwait2_recycle=1

# NETWORK/CERTAIN ICMP UNREACHABLE MESSAGES MAY ABORT CONNECTIONS IN SYN_SENT (1)
  net.inet.tcp.icmp_may_rst=0

# NETWORK/MAXIMUM SEGMENT LIFETIME (30000) [0.27x]
  net.inet.tcp.msl=8192

# NETWORK/ENABLE PATH MTU DISCOVERY (1)
  net.inet.tcp.path_mtu_discovery=0

# NETWORK/EXPIRE TIME OF TCP HOSTCACHE ENTRIES (3600) [2x]
  net.inet.tcp.hostcache.expire=7200

# NETWORK/TIME BEFORE DELAYED ACK IS SENT (100) [0.2x]
  net.inet.tcp.delacktime=20

The /boot/loader.conf file.

# BOOT OPTIONS
  autoboot_delay=1
  boot_mute=YES

# MODULES FOR BOOT
  zfs_load=YES

# DISABLE HYPER THREADING
  machdep.hyperthreading_allowed=0

# REDUCE NUMBER OF SOUND GENERATED INTERRUPTS
  hw.snd.latency=7

# RACCT/RCTL RESOURCE LIMITS
  kern.racct.enable=1

# PIPE KVA LIMIT | 320 MB
  kern.ipc.maxpipekva=335544320

# NUMBER OF SEGMENTS PER PROCESS
  kern.ipc.shmseg=1024

# LARGE PAGE MAPPINGS
  vm.pmap.pg_ps_enabled=1

# SHARED MEMORY
  kern.ipc.shmmni=1024
  kern.ipc.shmseg=1024

# ZFS TUNING
  vfs.zfs.prefetch_disable=1
  vfs.zfs.cache_flush_disable=1
  vfs.zfs.vdev.cache.size=16M
  vfs.zfs.arc_min=32M
  vfs.zfs.arc_max=128M
  vfs.zfs.txg.timeout=1

# NETWORK MAX SEND QUEUE SIZE
  net.link.ifqmaxlen=2048

# POWER OFF DEVICES WITHOUT ATTACHED DRIVER
  hw.pci.do_power_nodriver=3

# AHCI POWER MANAGEMENT FOR EVERY USED CHANNEL (ahcich 0-7)
  hint.ahcich.0.pm_level=5
  hint.ahcich.1.pm_level=5
  hint.ahcich.2.pm_level=5
  hint.ahcich.3.pm_level=5
  hint.ahcich.4.pm_level=5
  hint.ahcich.5.pm_level=5
  hint.ahcich.6.pm_level=5
  hint.ahcich.7.pm_level=5

# GELI THREADS
  kern.geom.eli.threads=2
  kern.geom.eli.batch=1

The /etc/rc.conf file.

# NETWORK
  hostname=offsite.local
  background_dhclient=YES
  extra_netfs_types=NFS
  defaultroute_delay=3
  defaultroute_carrier_delay=3

# MODULES/COMMON/BASE
  kld_list="${kld_list} aesni geom_eli"
  kld_list="${kld_list} fuse coretemp sem cpuctl ichsmb cc_htcp"
  kld_list="${kld_list} libiconv cd9660_iconv msdosfs_iconv udf_iconv"

# POWER
  performance_cx_lowest=C1
  economy_cx_lowest=Cmax
  powerd_enable=YES
  powerd_flags="-n adaptive -a hiadaptive -b adaptive -m 400 -M 1200"

# DAEMONS | yes
  zfs_enable=YES
  nfs_client_enable=YES
  syslogd_flags='-s -s'
  sshd_enable=YES

# DAEMONS | no
  sendmail_enable=NONE
  sendmail_submit_enable=NO
  sendmail_outbound_enable=NO
  sendmail_msp_queue_enable=NO

# FS
  fsck_y_enable=YES
  clear_tmp_enable=YES
  clear_tmp_X=YES
  growfs_enable=YES

# OTHER
  keyrate=fast
  font8x14=vgarom-8x14
  virecover_enable=NO
  update_motd=NO
  devfs_system_ruleset=desktop
  hostid_enable=NO

USB Boot Drive

I was not sure if I should use USB 2.0 drive or USB 3.0 drive for FreeBSD system so I got both versions from SanDisk and tested their performance with pv(1) and diskinfo(8) tools. The pv(1) utility had options enabled shown below and for diskinfo(8) the -c and -i parameters were used.

% which pv
pv: aliased to pv -t -r -a -b -W -B 1048576

The dmesg(8) information for the SanDisk Fit USB 2.0 16GB drive.

# dmesg | tail -6
da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus3 target 0 lun 0
da0:  Removable Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device
da0: Serial Number 4C530001100609104091
da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
da0: 15060MB (30842880 512 byte sectors)
da0: quirks=0x2

The dmesg(8) information for the SanDisk Fit USB 3.0 16GB drive.

# dmesg | tail -6
da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus3 target 0 lun 0
da0:  Removable Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device
da0: Serial Number 4C530 001070202100093
da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
da0: 14663MB (30031250 512 byte sectors)
da0: quirks=0x2

There is also noticeable size difference as the USB 2.0 version has additional 400 MB of space!

By the way … the SanDisk Fit USB 3.0 16GB came with this sticker inside the box – a serial number for the RescuePRO Deluxe software – which I will never use. Not because its bad or something but because I have no such needs. You may take it … of course unless someone else did not took it already πŸ™‚

silent-backup-license.jpg

Below are the results of the benchmarks, I tested them in both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports.


                   DRIVE  USB  pv/READ  pv/WRITE  diskinfo/OVERHEAD  diskinfo/IOPS
SanDisk Fit USB 2.0 16GB  2.0   29MB/s     5MB/s   0.712msec/sector           2521
SanDisk Fit USB 2.0 16GB  3.0   33MB/s     5MB/s   0.799msec/sector           2441
SanDisk Fit USB 3.0 16GB  2.0   35MB/s     9MB/s   0.618msec/sector           1920
SanDisk Fit USB 3.0 16GB  3.0   91MB/s    11MB/s   0.567msec/sector           1588

What is also interesting is that while USB 2.0 version has lower throughput it has more IOPS then the newer USB 3.0 incarnation of the SanDisk Fit drive. I also did other more real life test. I checked how long would it take to boot FreeBSD system installed on each of them from the loader(8) screen to the login: prompt. The difference is 5 seconds. Details are shown below.

 TIME  DRIVE
  28s  SanDisk Fit USB 3.0 16GB
  33s  SanDisk Fit USB 2.0 16GB

With such small ~15% difference I will use SanDisk Fit USB 2.0 16GB as it sticks out little less outside from the slot as shown below.

silent-backup-usb-drives.jpg

Cloud Storage Prices Comparison

The Tarsnap“online backups for the truly paranoid” – costs $0.25/GB/month. The price in Tarsnap is for data transmitted after deduplication and compression but that does not change much here. For my data the compressratio property from ZFS dataset is at 3% (1.03). When I estimate deduplication savings with zdb -S pool command I get additional 1% of the savings (1.01). Lets assume that with both deduplication and compression it would take 5% (1.05) savings. That would lower the Tarsnap price to $0.2375/GB/month.

The Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage – storage costs $0.005/GB/month.

Our single 4TB disk solution costs $230 for lets say 3 years. You can expect disk failure after that period but it may serve you as well for another 3 years. Now as we know the cloud storage prices lets calculate price for 4TB data stored for 3 years in these cloud services.

Self Solution Electricity Cost

We also need to calculate how much energy our build solution would consume. Currently 1kWh of power costs about $0.20 in Europe/Poland (rounded up). This means that running computer with 1000W power usage for 1 hour would cost you $0.20 on electricity bill. Our solution idles at 8.5W and uses 13.9W when fully loaded. It will be idle for most of the time so I will assume that it will use 10W on average here. That would cost us $0.002 for 10W device running for 1 hour.

Below you will also find calculations for 1 day (24x multiplier), 1 year (another 365.25x multiplier) and 3 years (another 3x multiplier).

  COST  TIME
$0.002  1 HOUR
$0.048  1 DAY
$17.53  1 YEAR
$52.60  3 YEARS

Our total 3 years electricity cost is $282.60 for building and then running the system non-stop. We can also implement features like Wake On LAN to limit that power usage even more for example.

Here are these cloud storage service providers prices.


PROVIDER     PRICE  DATA  TIME
Tarsnap    $0.2375   1GB  1 Month
Backblaze  $0.0050   1GB  1 Month

The price for 1 month of keeping 4TB of data on these providers looks as follows.


PROVIDER   PRICE  DATA  TIME
Tarsnap     $973   4TB  1 Month
Backblaze    $20   4TB  1 Month

For just 1 month the Tarsnap is 4 TIMES more expensive the keeping the backup on your self computer with 4TB disk. The Backblaze service is at 1/10 cost which is still reasonable.

Lets compare prices for 3 years of 4TB storage.


PROVIDER    PRICE  DATA  TIME
Tarsnap    $35021   4TB  3 Years
Backblaze    $737   4TB  3 Years

After 3 years the Backblaze solutions is about 2.5 TIMES more expensive then our personal setup, but if you really do not want to create your solution the difference for 3 years is not that big. The Tarsnap is out of bounds here being more then 120 TIMES more expensive then self hosted solution. Remember that I also did not included costs for transferring the data into or from the cloud storage. That would make cloud storage costs even bigger depending how often you would want to pull/push your data.

EOF

Wallpapers from Tech Pron

The Tech Pron at Twitter – @techno_pron – is a bot that posts aesthetic tech pics. Most of these computers pictures were made on a solid (or close to it) background color so I though it may be a cool idea to create wallpapers from them.

I have picked up 20 most interesting ones and made high resolution backgrounds of them. Here is their montage.

wallpapers-oldschool-machines.jpg

To download them all just follow this wallpapers-oldschool-machines.tar.gz file.

When needed use my random_wallpaper.sh handler from the https://github.com/vermaden/scripts repository to setup random wallpaper from directory.

EOF

Silent Fanless FreeBSD Desktop/Server

Today I will write about silent fanless FreeBSD desktop or server computer … or NAS … or you name it, it can have multiple purposes. It also very low power solution, which also means that it will not overheat. Silent means no fans at all, even for the PSU. The format of the system should also be brought to minimum, so Mini-ITX seems best solution here.

I also made two follow ups to this article:

I have chosen Intel based solutions as they are very low power (6-10W), if you prefer AMD (as I often do) the closest solution in comparable price and power is Biostar A68N-2100 motherboard with AMD E1-2100 CPU and 9W power. Of course AMD has even more low power SoC solutions but finding the Mini-ITX motherboard with decent price is not an easy task. For comparision Intel has lots of such solutions below 6W whose can be nicely filtered on the ark.intel.com page. Pity that AMD does not provide such filtration for their products. I also chosen AES instructions as storage encryption (GELI on FreeBSD) today seems as obvious as HTTPS for the web pages.

Here is how the system look powered up and working.

itx-mobo

This motherboard uses Intel J3355 SoC which uses 10W and has AES instructions. It has two cores at your disposal but it also supports VT-x and EPT extensions so you can even run Bhyve on it.

Components

Now, an example system would look like that one below, here are the components with their prices.

  $49  CPU/Motherboard ASRock J3355B-ITX Mini-ITX
  $14  RAM Crucial 4 GB DDR3L 1.35V (low power)
  $17  PSU 12V 160W Pico (internal)
  $11  PSU 12V 96W FSP (external)
   $5  USB 2.0 Drive 16 GB ADATA
   $4  USB Wireless 802.11n
 $100  TOTAL

The PSU 12V 160W Pico (internal) and PSU 12V 96W FSP can be purchased on aliexpress.com or ebay.com for example, at least I got them there.

Here is the 12V 160W Pico (internal) PSU and its optional additional cables to power the optional HDDs. If course its one SATA power and one MOLEX power so additional MOLEX-SATA power adapter for about 1$ would be needed.

itx-psu-int

itx-psu-int-cables

Here is the 12V 96W FSP (external) PSU without the power cord.

itx-psu-ext

itx-psu-ext-close

This is still without a case, I currently have SilverStone SG05 (today I would probably buy something else) which cost me about $100 but there are cheaper solutions with similar features. If you would like to use two 2.5 drives for even low power and noise as ZFS mirror, then the Inter-Tech ITX-601 case seems far more better as it also comes with the silent PSU.

The SilverStone SG05 case with ‘loud’ PSU.

itx-35-case-silverstone

The Inter-Tech ITX-601 case with silent PSU.

itx-25-case-front

itx-25-case-top

With the Inter-Tech ITX-601 case the components and their prices would look like that.

  $49  CPU/Motherboard ASRock J3355B-ITX Mini-ITX
  $14  RAM Crucial 4 GB DDR3L 1.35V (low power)
  $50  CASE Inter-Tech ITX-601 (comes with PSU)
   $5  USB 2.0 Drive 16 GB ADATA C008
   $4  USB Wireless 802.11n
 $122  TOTAL

Of course if ‘you wanna go pro‘ there are great cases such as Supermicro 721TQ-250B which is also used by FreeNAS Mini appliance and SilverStone CS01-HS with disks loaded from top, but they both cost $160 without the PSU.

The Supermicro 721TQ-250B case.

itx-case-pro-SM

The SilverStone CS01-HS case.

itx-case-pro-SS

The RAM vendor is not important here, the more important is to get the low power DDR3 memory – the DDR3L as it takes less power.

The boring RAM stick itself.

itx-ram

I have used USB 2.0 Drive 16 GB ADATA C008 for system drive but if you are going to buy one, the I would get USB 2.0 Drive Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16 GB as it barely gets out of the port or even two of them for the ZFS mirror for the system if its critical.

The Sandisk Cruzer Fit flash.

itx-usb-sandisk-cruzer-fit.jpg

I also used tiny USB WiFi stick which is the size of Sandisk Cruzer Fit.

itx-usb-wifi

Costs

This gives as total silent fanless system price of about $120. Its about ONE TENTH OF THE COST of the cheapest FreeNAS hardware solution available – the FreeNAS Mini (Diskless) costs $1156 also without disks.

FreeBSD

I have tried FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT r331740 on this box, but the upcoming FreeBSD 11.2-RELEASE (currently at RC1 stage) would do as much well. Below is the dmesg(8) console output of system boot on this machine.

Copyright (c) 1992-2018 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
	The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT #0 r331740: Thu Mar 29 21:24:24 UTC 2018
    root@releng3.nyi.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC amd64
FreeBSD clang version 6.0.0 (tags/RELEASE_600/final 326565) (based on LLVM 6.0.0)
WARNING: WITNESS option enabled, expect reduced performance.
VT(efifb): resolution 1024x768
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J3355 @ 2.00GHz (1996.89-MHz K8-class CPU)
  Origin="GenuineIntel"  Id=0x506c9  Family=0x6  Model=0x5c  Stepping=9
  Features=0xbfebfbff
  Features2=0x4ff8ebbf
  AMD Features=0x2c100800
  AMD Features2=0x101
  Structured Extended Features=0x2294e283
  XSAVE Features=0xf
  VT-x: PAT,HLT,MTF,PAUSE,EPT,UG,VPID,VID,PostIntr
  TSC: P-state invariant, performance statistics
real memory  = 4294967296 (4096 MB)
avail memory = 3696037888 (3524 MB)
Event timer "LAPIC" quality 600
ACPI APIC Table: 
WARNING: L1 data cache covers fewer APIC IDs than a core (0 < 1)
FreeBSD/SMP: Multiprocessor System Detected: 2 CPUs
FreeBSD/SMP: 1 package(s) x 2 core(s)
random: unblocking device.
ioapic0  irqs 0-119 on motherboard
SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 1996886000 Hz quality 1000
random: entropy device external interface
netmap: loaded module
[ath_hal] loaded
module_register_init: MOD_LOAD (vesa, 0xffffffff81034600, 0) error 19
random: registering fast source Intel Secure Key RNG
random: fast provider: "Intel Secure Key RNG"
kbd1 at kbdmux0
nexus0
cryptosoft0:  on motherboard
acpi0:  on motherboard
unknown: I/O range not supported
cpu0:  on acpi0
cpu1:  on acpi0
attimer0:  port 0x40-0x43,0x50-0x53 irq 0 on acpi0
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
Event timer "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 100
atrtc0:  port 0x70-0x77 on acpi0
atrtc0: Warning: Couldn't map I/O.
atrtc0: registered as a time-of-day clock, resolution 1.000000s
Event timer "RTC" frequency 32768 Hz quality 0
hpet0:  iomem 0xfed00000-0xfed003ff irq 8 on acpi0
Timecounter "HPET" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 950
Event timer "HPET" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 550
Event timer "HPET1" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET2" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET3" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET4" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET5" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Event timer "HPET6" frequency 19200000 Hz quality 440
Timecounter "ACPI-fast" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 900
acpi_timer0:  port 0x408-0x40b on acpi0
pcib0:  port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0:  on pcib0
vgapci0:  port 0xf000-0xf03f mem 0x90000000-0x90ffffff,0x80000000-0x8fffffff irq 19 at device 2.0 on pci0
vgapci0: Boot video device
hdac0:  mem 0x91210000-0x91213fff,0x91000000-0x910fffff irq 25 at device 14.0 on pci0
pci0:  at device 15.0 (no driver attached)
ahci0:  port 0xf090-0xf097,0xf080-0xf083,0xf060-0xf07f mem 0x91214000-0x91215fff,0x91218000-0x912180ff,0x91217000-0x912177ff irq 19 at device 18.0 on pci0
ahci0: AHCI v1.31 with 2 6Gbps ports, Port Multiplier supported
ahcich0:  at channel 0 on ahci0
ahcich1:  at channel 1 on ahci0
pcib1:  irq 22 at device 19.0 on pci0
pci1:  on pcib1
pcib2:  irq 20 at device 19.2 on pci0
pci2:  on pcib2
re0:  port 0xe000-0xe0ff mem 0x91104000-0x91104fff,0x91100000-0x91103fff irq 20 at device 0.0 on pci2
re0: Using 1 MSI-X message
re0: ASPM disabled
re0: Chip rev. 0x4c000000
re0: MAC rev. 0x00000000
miibus0:  on re0
rgephy0:  PHY 1 on miibus0
rgephy0:  none, 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 10baseT-FDX-flow, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 100baseTX-FDX-flow, 1000baseT-FDX, 1000baseT-FDX-master, 1000baseT-FDX-flow, 1000baseT-FDX-flow-master, auto, auto-flow
re0: Using defaults for TSO: 65518/35/2048
re0: Ethernet address: 70:85:c2:xx:xx:xx
re0: netmap queues/slots: TX 1/256, RX 1/256
xhci0:  mem 0x91200000-0x9120ffff irq 17 at device 21.0 on pci0
xhci0: 32 bytes context size, 64-bit DMA
usbus0 on xhci0
usbus0: 5.0Gbps Super Speed USB v3.0
isab0:  at device 31.0 on pci0
isa0:  on isab0
acpi_button0:  on acpi0
acpi_tz0:  on acpi0
ppc1:  port 0x378-0x37f,0x778-0x77f irq 5 drq 3 on acpi0
ppc1: SMC-like chipset (ECP/EPP/PS2/NIBBLE) in COMPATIBLE mode
ppc1: FIFO with 16/16/9 bytes threshold
ppbus0:  on ppc1
lpt0:  on ppbus0
lpt0: Interrupt-driven port
ppi0:  on ppbus0
uart0:  port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
uart1:  port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on acpi0
atkbdc0:  at port 0x60,0x64 on isa0
atkbd0:  irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
atkbdc0: non-PNP ISA device will be removed from GENERIC in FreeBSD 12.
est0:  on cpu0
est1:  on cpu1
ZFS filesystem version: 5
ZFS storage pool version: features support (5000)
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
hdacc0:  at cad 0 on hdac0
hdaa0:  at nid 1 on hdacc0
pcm0:  at nid 21 and 24,26 on hdaa0
pcm1:  at nid 20 and 25 on hdaa0
pcm2:  at nid 27 on hdaa0
hdacc1:  at cad 2 on hdac0
hdaa1:  at nid 1 on hdacc1
pcm3:  at nid 3 on hdaa1
ugen0.1:  at usbus0
uhub0:  on usbus0
Trying to mount root from zfs:zroot/ROOT/default []...
Root mount waiting for: usbus0
WARNING: WITNESS option enabled, expect reduced performance.
uhub0: 15 ports with 15 removable, self powered
Root mount waiting for: usbus0
Root mount waiting for: usbus0
ugen0.2:  at usbus0
umass0 on uhub0
umass0:  on usbus0
umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x8100
umass0:2:0: Attached to scbus2
da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus2 target 0 lun 0
da0:  Removable Direct Access SPC-2 SCSI device
da0: Serial Number 27A2100480550067
da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
da0: 14800MB (30310400 512 byte sectors)
da0: quirks=0x2
Root mount waiting for: usbus0
ugen0.3:  at usbus0
Root mount waiting for: usbus0
ugen0.4:  at usbus0
uhub1 on uhub0
uhub1:  on usbus0
Root mount waiting for: usbus0
Root mount waiting for: usbus0
uhub1: 4 ports with 3 removable, bus powered
ugen0.5:  at usbus0
ukbd0 on uhub1
ukbd0:  on usbus0
kbd2 at ukbd0
re0: link state changed to DOWN
rtwn0 on uhub0
rtwn0:  on usbus0
rtwn0: MAC/BB RTL8188CUS, RF 6052 1T1R

I haven’t tried the HDMI output but VGA output both in console and X11 worked properly, same for sound, onboard NIC and rest of the provided interfaces. To connect to the Internet and fetch packages I used tiny USB WiFi stick based on the RTL8188CUS chip, also worked very good, here are details from the console about the USB WiFi stick from dmesg(8).

ugen0.5:  at usbus0
rtwn0 on uhub0
rtwn0:  on usbus0
rtwn0: MAC/BB RTL8188CUS, RF 6052 1T1R

Storage

If it will gonna serve as NAS when what storage should You attach to it? Depends on how much storage space you need, if You can fit in 5 TB (which is quite a lot anyway) You can still use that Inter-Tech ITX-601 case as Seagate provides 5 TB 2.5 drives with BarraCuda ST5000LM000 model.

I currently use two 4 TB 3.5 drives as they are cheaper then the 2.5 drives, but that of course requires bigger case and more power and also makes more noise.

To keep the system totally silent You would of course have to use SSD drives for the storage, but that would be very expensive. For example getting two 1 TB 2.5 SSD drives to mirror them would cost you about $400. For the same price you could get two 5 TB 2.5 HDD drives. ONE FIFTH OF THE COST comparing to SSD drives. Or two 8 TB 3.5 HDD drives. ONE EIGHTH OF THE COST comparing to SSD drives. As you can see total silence comes at a price πŸ˜‰

Expansion

As these motherboard come with PCI-Express slot you can expand the features even more, for example with 10 GE card or additional SATA controller. When I used the older solution I used that slot for the USB 3.0 ports card extension.

These kinds of motherboards often come with internal Mini PCI-Express ports which are ideal for wireless devices or SSD drives.

System

You can put plain FreeBSD on top of it or Solaris/Illumos distribution OmniOSce which is server oriented. You can use prebuilt NAS solution based on FreeBSD like FreeNAS, NAS4Free, ZFSguru or even Solaris/Illumos based storage with napp-it appliance.

You can of course stick with one SSD or USB flash for the system and use it as a desktop with install like in the FreeBSD Desktop – Part 2 – Install article, but in that case I would suggest getting even smaller case then the ones described here.

With WiFi card that supports Host AP mode (most Atheros devices) You can also turn it into a safe wireless access point on a HardenedBSD system, or even OpenBSD.

UPDATE 1 – Motherboard with ECC RAM Support

As Bill Bog mentioned in the comments below that such kind of setup does not offer ECC memory and I agree with him that its better to have ECC then to not have it so I add this update with information on how to achieve still cheap and silent fanless setup.

The ASRock C2550D4I comes with help and ECC memory support and its not THAT expensive as you can get it new for about $290. It comes with quad-core Intel Atom C2550 CPU and uses only 14W of power which is not bad considering that it can support up to 64 GB of ECC RAM and has 12 (!) SATA ports. It also covers all important features as AES instructions and VT-x and EPT extensions for Bhyve support. It still provides PCI-Express x8 slot and even remote management with IPMI. And last but not least it has two 1 GE LAN ports.

Here is how it looks.

itx-mobo-ecc-C2550.jpg

As ECC RAM is usually more expensive then the regular one the used ECC RAM stick needed for such setup is very cheap, without any extra effort I was able to find used Samsung DDR3L 4GB 1333 ECC REG. PC3L-10600R memory stick for about $10.

The less boring ECC RAM stick.

itx-mobo-ecc-ram

The example complete ECC setup would look like that.

 $290  CPU/Motherboard ASRock C2550D4I
  $10  RAM Samsung 4 GB DDR3L 1.35V ECC REG
  $50  CASE Inter-Tech ITX-601 (comes with PSU)
  $10  2 x Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16 GB
   $4  USB Wireless 802.11n
 $364  TOTAL

Still QUARTER OF THE COST comparing to the FreeNAS Mini (Diskless) appliance and we will have two Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16 GB drives to put system in a ZFS mirror as we already use ECC memory for increased data security.

UPDATE 2

The Silent Fanless FreeBSD Desktop/Server article was featured in the BSD Now 253 – Silence of the Fans episode.

Thanks for mentioning!

UPDATE 3

Seems that I indirectly created $50 discount on http://SilentPC.com machines πŸ™‚

The Silent Fanless FreeBSD Desktop/Server was featured in BSD Now 253 – Silence of the Fans. Peter from SilentPC wrote here http://dpaste.com/2N6DC6P and you can also see it talked through in the latest BSD Now 262 – OpenBSD Surfacing episode from 1:03:27 to 1:04:37 that if you mention BSD Now in the comments at checkout they will get you a $50 discount on a system.

EOF

Distributed Object Storage with Minio on FreeBSD

Meet Minio.

minio-logo-arch-32

Free and open source distributed object storage server compatible with Amazon S3 v2/v4 API. Offers data protection against hardware failures using erasure code and bitrot detection. Supports highly available distributed setup. Provides confidentiality, integrity and authenticity assurances for encrypted data with negligible performance overhead. Both server side and client side encryption are supported. Below is the image of example Minio setup.

Web

The Minio identifies itself as the ZFS of Cloud Object Storage. This guide will show You how to setup highly available distributed Minio storage on the FreeBSD operating system with ZFS as backend for Minio data. For convenience we will use FreeBSD Jails operating system level virtualization.

Setup

The setup will assume that You have 3 datacenters and assumption that you have two datacenters in whose the most of the data must reside and that the third datacenter is used as a ‘quorum/witness’ role. Distributed Minio supports up to 16 nodes/drives total, so we may juggle with that number to balance data between desired datacenters. As we have 16 drives to allocate resources on 3 sites we will use 7 + 7 + 2 approach here. The datacenters where most of the data must reside have 7/16 ratio while the ‘quorum/witness’ datacenter have only 2/16 ratio. Thanks to built in Minio redundancy we may loose (turn off for example) any one of those machines and our object storage will still be available and ready to use for any purpose.

Jails

First we will create 3 jails for our proof of concept Minio setup, storage1 will have the ‘quorum/witness’ role while storage2 and storage3 will have the ‘data’ role. To distinguish commands I type on the host system and storageX Jail I use two different prompts, this way it should be obvious what command to execute and where.

Command on the host system.

host # command

Command on the storageX Jail.

root@storageX:/ # command

First we will create the base Jails for our setup.

host # mkdir -p /jail/BASE /jail/storage1 /jail/storage2 /jail/storage3
host # cd /jail/BASE
host # fetch http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/11.1-RELEASE/base.txz
host # for I in 1 2 3; do echo ${I}; tar --unlink -xpJf /jail/BASE/base.txz -C /jail/storage${I}; done
1
2
3
host #

We will now add Jails configuration the the /etc/jail.conf file.

I have used my laptop for the Jail host. This is why Jail will configured to use the wireless wlan0 interface and 192.168.43.10X addresses.

host # for I in 1 2 3
do
  cat >> /etc/jail.conf << __EOF
storage${I} {
  host.hostname = storage${I}.local;
  ip4.addr = 192.168.43.10${I};
  interface = wlan0;
  path = /jail/storage${I};
  exec.start = "/bin/sh /etc/rc";
  exec.stop = "/bin/sh /etc/rc.shutdown";
  exec.clean;
  mount.devfs;
  allow.raw_sockets;
}

__EOF
done
host #

Lets verify that /etc/jail.conf file is configured as desired.

host # cat /etc/jail.conf
storage1 {
  host.hostname = storage1.local;
  ip4.addr = 192.168.43.101;
  interface = wlan0;
  path = /jail/storage1;
  exec.start = "/bin/sh /etc/rc";
  exec.stop = "/bin/sh /etc/rc.shutdown";
  exec.clean;
  mount.devfs;
  allow.raw_sockets;
}

storage2 {
  host.hostname = storage2.local;
  ip4.addr = 192.168.43.102;
  interface = wlan0;
  path = /jail/storage2;
  exec.start = "/bin/sh /etc/rc";
  exec.stop = "/bin/sh /etc/rc.shutdown";
  exec.clean;
  mount.devfs;
  allow.raw_sockets;
}

storage3 {
  host.hostname = storage3.local;
  ip4.addr = 192.168.43.103;
  interface = wlan0;
  path = /jail/storage3;
  exec.start = "/bin/sh /etc/rc";
  exec.stop = "/bin/sh /etc/rc.shutdown";
  exec.clean;
  mount.devfs;
  allow.raw_sockets;
}

host #

Now we will start our Jails.

host # for I in 1 2 3; do service jail onestart storage${I}; done
Starting jails: storage1.
Starting jails: storage2.
Starting jails: storage3.

Lets see how they work.

host # jls
   JID  IP Address      Hostname                      Path
     1  192.168.43.101  storage1.local                /jail/storage1
     2  192.168.43.102  storage2.local                /jail/storage2
     3  192.168.43.103  storage3.local                /jail/storage3

Now lets add DNS server so they will have Internet connectivity.

host # for I in 1 2 3; do echo nameserver 1.1.1.1 > /jail/storage${I}/etc/resolv.conf; done

We can now install Minio package.

host # for I in 1 2 3; do jexec storage${I} env ASSUME_ALWAYS_YES=yes pkg install -y minio; echo; done
Bootstrapping pkg from pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/quarterly, please wait...
Verifying signature with trusted certificate pkg.freebsd.org.2013102301... done
[storage1.local] Installing pkg-1.10.5...
[storage1.local] Extracting pkg-1.10.5: 100%
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
pkg: Repository FreeBSD load error: access repo file(/var/db/pkg/repo-FreeBSD.sqlite) failed: No such file or directory
[storage1.local] Fetching meta.txz: 100%    944 B   0.9kB/s    00:01    
[storage1.local] Fetching packagesite.txz: 100%    6 MiB 637.1kB/s    00:10    
Processing entries: 100%
FreeBSD repository update completed. 31143 packages processed.
All repositories are up to date.
Updating database digests format: 100%
The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:
        minio: 2018.03.19.19.22.06

Number of packages to be installed: 1

The process will require 22 MiB more space.
6 MiB to be downloaded.
[storage1.local] [1/1] Fetching minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06.txz: 100%    6 MiB 305.6kB/s    00:19    
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
[storage1.local] [1/1] Installing minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06...
===> Creating groups.
Creating group 'minio' with gid '473'.
===> Creating users
Creating user 'minio' with uid '473'.
[storage1.local] [1/1] Extracting minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06: 100%

Bootstrapping pkg from pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/quarterly, please wait...
Verifying signature with trusted certificate pkg.freebsd.org.2013102301... done
[storage2.local] Installing pkg-1.10.5...
[storage2.local] Extracting pkg-1.10.5: 100%
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
pkg: Repository FreeBSD load error: access repo file(/var/db/pkg/repo-FreeBSD.sqlite) failed: No such file or directory
[storage2.local] Fetching meta.txz: 100%    944 B   0.9kB/s    00:01    
[storage2.local] Fetching packagesite.txz: 100%    6 MiB 637.1kB/s    00:10    
Processing entries: 100%
FreeBSD repository update completed. 31143 packages processed.
All repositories are up to date.
Updating database digests format: 100%
The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:
        minio: 2018.03.19.19.22.06

Number of packages to be installed: 1

The process will require 22 MiB more space.
6 MiB to be downloaded.
[storage2.local] [1/1] Fetching minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06.txz: 100%    6 MiB 305.6kB/s    00:19    
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
[storage2.local] [1/1] Installing minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06...
===> Creating groups.
Creating group 'minio' with gid '473'.
===> Creating users
Creating user 'minio' with uid '473'.
[storage2.local] [1/1] Extracting minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06: 100%

Bootstrapping pkg from pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/quarterly, please wait...
Verifying signature with trusted certificate pkg.freebsd.org.2013102301... done
[storage3.local] Installing pkg-1.10.5...
[storage3.local] Extracting pkg-1.10.5: 100%
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
pkg: Repository FreeBSD load error: access repo file(/var/db/pkg/repo-FreeBSD.sqlite) failed: No such file or directory
[storage3.local] Fetching meta.txz: 100%    944 B   0.9kB/s    00:01    
[storage3.local] Fetching packagesite.txz: 100%    6 MiB 637.1kB/s    00:10    
Processing entries: 100%
FreeBSD repository update completed. 31143 packages processed.
All repositories are up to date.
Updating database digests format: 100%
The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:
        minio: 2018.03.19.19.22.06

Number of packages to be installed: 1

The process will require 22 MiB more space.
6 MiB to be downloaded.
[storage3.local] [1/1] Fetching minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06.txz: 100%    6 MiB 305.6kB/s    00:19    
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
[storage3.local] [1/1] Installing minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06...
===> Creating groups.
Creating group 'minio' with gid '473'.
===> Creating users
Creating user 'minio' with uid '473'.
[storage3.local] [1/1] Extracting minio-2018.03.19.19.22.06: 100%

host #

Lets verify that Minio package has installed successfully.

host # for I in 1 2 3; do jexec storage${I} which minio; done
/usr/local/bin/minio
/usr/local/bin/minio
/usr/local/bin/minio
host #

Now we will configure /etc/hosts file.

root@storage1:/ # cat >> /etc/hosts << __EOF
192.168.43.101 storage1
192.168.43.102 storage2
192.168.43.103 storage3
__EOF
root@storage1:/ # cat >> /etc/hosts << __EOF
192.168.43.101 storage1
192.168.43.102 storage2
192.168.43.103 storage3
__EOF
root@storage1:/ # cat >> /etc/hosts << __EOF
192.168.43.101 storage1
192.168.43.102 storage2
192.168.43.103 storage3
__EOF

We will create directories for Minio data.

host # for DIR in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
do
  for I in 2 3
  do
    jexec storage${I} mkdir -p /data${DIR}
  done
done
host # for DIR in 1 2
do
  for I in 1
  do
    jexec storage${I} mkdir -p /data${DIR}
  done
done

Lets verify that that our data directories created successfully.

host # for I in 1 2 3
  do
    echo storage${I}
    jexec storage${I} ls -1 / | grep data
    echo
  done


storage1
data1
data2

storage2
data1
data2
data3
data4
data5
data6
data7

storage3
data1
data2
data3
data4
data5
data6
data7

Basic minio command example.

root@storage1:/ # minio
NAME:
  minio - Cloud Storage Server.

DESCRIPTION:
  Minio is an Amazon S3 compatible object storage server. Use it to store photos, videos, VMs, containers, log files, or any blob of data as objects.

USAGE:
  minio [FLAGS] COMMAND [ARGS...]

COMMANDS:
  server   Start object storage server.
  gateway  Start object storage gateway.
  update   Check for a new software update.
  version  Print version.
  
FLAGS:
  --config-dir value, -C value  Path to configuration directory. (default: "/root/.minio")
  --quiet                       Disable startup information.
  --json                        Output server logs and startup information in json format.
  --help, -h                    Show help.
  
VERSION:
  2018-03-19T19:22:06Z

Now we can generate the list of directories on servers to add as argument for Minio.

host # for DIR in 1 2
do
  for I in 1 
  do
    echo -n http://
    jls | grep storage${I} | awk '{printf $3}' | sed s/.local//g
    echo ":9000/data${DIR} \\"
  done
done | sort -n

host # for DIR in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
do
  for I in 2 3
  do
    echo -n http://
    jls | grep storage${I} | awk '{printf $3}' | sed s/.local//g
    echo ":9000/data${DIR} \\"
  done
done | sort -n
http://storage1:9000/data1 \
http://storage1:9000/data2 \
http://storage2:9000/data1 \
http://storage2:9000/data2 \
http://storage2:9000/data3 \
http://storage2:9000/data4 \
http://storage2:9000/data5 \
http://storage2:9000/data6 \
http://storage2:9000/data7 \
http://storage3:9000/data1 \
http://storage3:9000/data2 \
http://storage3:9000/data3 \
http://storage3:9000/data4 \
http://storage3:9000/data5 \
http://storage3:9000/data6 \
http://storage3:9000/data7 \

We can as well just write it down by hand of course πŸ™‚

host # for DIR in 1 2
do
  for I in 1 
  do
    echo -n http://
    jls | grep storage${I} | awk '{printf $3}' | sed s/.local//g
    echo -n ":9000/data${DIR} "
  done
done | sort -n

host # for DIR in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
do
  for I in 2 3
  do
    echo -n http://
    jls | grep storage${I} | awk '{printf $3}' | sed s/.local//g
    echo -n ":9000/data${DIR} "
  done
done | sort -n

This is out list of data directories that we will use to configure Minio in FreeBSD’s main configuration /etc/rc.conf file.

http://storage1:9000/data1 http://storage1:9000/data2 http://storage2:9000/data1 http://storage2:9000/data2 http://storage2:9000/data3 http://storage2:9000/data4 http://storage2:9000/data5 http://storage2:9000/data6 http://storage2:9000/data7 http://storage3:9000/data1 http://storage3:9000/data2 http://storage3:9000/data3 http://storage3:9000/data4 http://storage3:9000/data5 http://storage3:9000/data6 http://storage3:9000/data7

Now, lets put Minio settings into the /etc/rc.conf file.

root@storageX:~ # cat > /etc/rc.conf << __EOF 
minio_enable=YES
minio_disks="http://storage1:9000/data1 http://storage1:9000/data2 http://storage2:9000/data1 http://storage2:9000/data2 http://storage2:9000/data3 http://storage2:9000/data4 http://storage2:9000/data5 http://storage2:9000/data6 http://storage2:9000/data7 http://storage3:9000/data1 http://storage3:9000/data2 http://storage3:9000/data3 http://storage3:9000/data4 http://storage3:9000/data5 http://storage3:9000/data6 http://storage3:9000/data7"
__EOF
root@storageX:~ # 
root@storageX:~ # cat /etc/rc.conf
minio_enable=YES
minio_disks="http://storage1:9000/data1 http://storage1:9000/data2 http://storage2:9000/data1 http://storage2:9000/data2 http://storage2:9000/data3 http://storage2:9000/data4 http://storage2:9000/data5 http://storage2:9000/data6 http://storage2:9000/data7 http://storage3:9000/data1 http://storage3:9000/data2 http://storage3:9000/data3 http://storage3:9000/data4 http://storage3:9000/data5 http://storage3:9000/data6 http://storage3:9000/data7"
root@storageX:~ #

Now we will start and configure Minio for the first time.

On each storageX server run the following set of commands.

host # jexec storage3
root@storage3:~ # 
root@storage3:/ # rm -rf /http:\*
root@storage3:/ # rm -rf /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage3:/ # rm -rf /data?/* /data?/.minio.sys
root@storage3:/ # touch                /var/log/minio.log
root@storage3:/ # chown    minio:minio /var/log/minio.log
root@storage3:/ # mkdir -p             /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage3:/ # chown -R minio:minio /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage3:/ # mkdir -p             /http::
root@storage3:/ # chown -R minio:minio /http::
root@storage3:/ # mkdir -p             /http:
root@storage3:/ # chown -R minio:minio /http:
root@storage3:/ # su -m minio -c 'env \\
?   MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=alibaba \\
?   MINIO_SECRET_KEY=0P3NS3S4M3 \\
?   minio server \\
?     --config-dir /usr/local/etc/minio \\
?     http://storage1:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage1:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data3 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data4 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data5 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data6 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data7 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data3 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data4 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data5 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data6 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data7'
Created minio configuration file successfully at /usr/local/etc/minio
Waiting for the first server to format the disks.
Waiting for the first server to format the disks.
Drive Capacity: 504 GiB Free, 515 GiB Total
Status:         16 Online, 0 Offline. 

Endpoint:  http://192.168.43.103:9000
AccessKey: alibaba 
SecretKey: 0P3NS3S4M3 

Browser Access:
   http://192.168.43.103:9000

Command-line Access: https://docs.minio.io/docs/minio-client-quickstart-guide
   $ mc config host add myminio http://192.168.43.103:9000 alibaba 0P3NS3S4M3

Object API (Amazon S3 compatible):
   Go:         https://docs.minio.io/docs/golang-client-quickstart-guide
   Java:       https://docs.minio.io/docs/java-client-quickstart-guide
   Python:     https://docs.minio.io/docs/python-client-quickstart-guide
   JavaScript: https://docs.minio.io/docs/javascript-client-quickstart-guide
   .NET:       https://docs.minio.io/docs/dotnet-client-quickstart-guide
host # jexec storage2
root@storage2:~ # 
root@storage2:/ # rm -rf /http:\*
root@storage2:/ # rm -rf /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage2:/ # rm -rf /data?/* /data?/.minio.sys
root@storage2:/ # touch                /var/log/minio.log
root@storage2:/ # chown    minio:minio /var/log/minio.log
root@storage2:/ # mkdir -p             /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage2:/ # chown -R minio:minio /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage2:/ # mkdir -p             /http::
root@storage2:/ # chown -R minio:minio /http::
root@storage2:/ # mkdir -p             /http:
root@storage2:/ # chown -R minio:minio /http:
root@storage2:/ # su -m minio -c 'env \\
?   MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=alibaba \\
?   MINIO_SECRET_KEY=0P3NS3S4M3 \\
?   minio server \\
?     --config-dir /usr/local/etc/minio \\
?     http://storage1:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage1:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data3 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data4 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data5 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data6 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data7 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data3 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data4 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data5 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data6 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data7'
Created minio configuration file successfully at /usr/local/etc/minio
Waiting for the first server to format the disks.
Waiting for the first server to format the disks.
Drive Capacity: 504 GiB Free, 515 GiB Total
Status:         16 Online, 0 Offline. 

Endpoint:  http://192.168.43.102:9000
AccessKey: alibaba 
SecretKey: 0P3NS3S4M3 

Browser Access:
   http://192.168.43.102:9000

Command-line Access: https://docs.minio.io/docs/minio-client-quickstart-guide
   $ mc config host add myminio http://192.168.43.102:9000 alibaba 0P3NS3S4M3

Object API (Amazon S3 compatible):
   Go:         https://docs.minio.io/docs/golang-client-quickstart-guide
   Java:       https://docs.minio.io/docs/java-client-quickstart-guide
   Python:     https://docs.minio.io/docs/python-client-quickstart-guide
   JavaScript: https://docs.minio.io/docs/javascript-client-quickstart-guide
   .NET:       https://docs.minio.io/docs/dotnet-client-quickstart-guide
host # jexec storage1
root@storage1:~ # 
root@storage1:/ # rm -rf /http:\*
root@storage1:/ # rm -rf /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage1:/ # rm -rf /data?/* /data?/.minio.sys
root@storage1:/ # touch                /var/log/minio.log
root@storage1:/ # chown    minio:minio /var/log/minio.log
root@storage1:/ # mkdir -p             /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage1:/ # chown -R minio:minio /usr/local/etc/minio
root@storage1:/ # mkdir -p             /http::
root@storage1:/ # chown -R minio:minio /http::
root@storage1:/ # mkdir -p             /http:
root@storage1:/ # chown -R minio:minio /http:
root@storage1:/ # su -m minio -c 'env \\
?   MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=alibaba \\
?   MINIO_SECRET_KEY=0P3NS3S4M3 \\
?   minio server \\
?     --config-dir /usr/local/etc/minio \\
?     http://storage1:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage1:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data3 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data4 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data5 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data6 \\
?     http://storage2:9000/data7 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data1 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data2 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data3 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data4 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data5 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data6 \\
?     http://storage3:9000/data7'
Created minio configuration file successfully at /usr/local/etc/minio
Waiting for the first server to format the disks.
Waiting for the first server to format the disks.
Drive Capacity: 504 GiB Free, 515 GiB Total
Status:         16 Online, 0 Offline. 

Endpoint:  http://192.168.43.101:9000
AccessKey: alibaba 
SecretKey: 0P3NS3S4M3 

Browser Access:
   http://192.168.43.101:9000

Command-line Access: https://docs.minio.io/docs/minio-client-quickstart-guide
   $ mc config host add myminio http://192.168.43.101:9000 alibaba 0P3NS3S4M3

Object API (Amazon S3 compatible):
   Go:         https://docs.minio.io/docs/golang-client-quickstart-guide
   Java:       https://docs.minio.io/docs/java-client-quickstart-guide
   Python:     https://docs.minio.io/docs/python-client-quickstart-guide
   JavaScript: https://docs.minio.io/docs/javascript-client-quickstart-guide
   .NET:       https://docs.minio.io/docs/dotnet-client-quickstart-guide

Here is how it looks in the xterm terminal.

minio-first-run-setup

We can now verify in the browser that it actually works.

minio-browser-01

Now hit [CTRL]+[C] in each of these windows to stop the Minio cluster.

We will now start Minio with FreeBSD rc(8) subsystem as a service.

root@storage1:/ # service minio start
Starting minio.
root@storage1:/ # cat /var/log/minio.log 
root@storage1:/ # service minio status
minio is running as pid 50309.

Lets check if it works.

root@storage1:/ # ps -U minio
  PID TT  STAT    TIME COMMAND
50308  -  IsJ  0:00.00 daemon: /usr/bin/env[50309] (daemon)
50309  -  IJ   0:00.27 /usr/local/bin/minio -C /usr/local/etc/minio server (...)

Now we will do some basic operations, login into Minio distributed storage, create new bucket and upload some file to it.

minio-browser-02

This is how empty Minio cluster looks like.

minio-browser-03

Select Create Bucket option from the button below.

minio-browser-04-create-bucket

We will use name test for our new bucket.

minio-browser-05-create-bucket

It is created and we can access it.

minio-browser-06-bucket

Lets Upload File using same menu as previously.

minio-browser-07-file-upload

The upload progress shown by Minio.

minio-browser-08-file-upload

File has been indeed uploaded.

minio-browser-09-file-upload

By clicking on it we may access it directly from the browser.

minio-browser-10-file-display

We can also share link to that file by using the File Menu as shown below.

minio-browser-10-file-link

The link creation dialog is shown below.

minio-browser-11-file-link

minio-browser-12-file-link

Lets see how Minio distributes the data – the ThinkPad Design – Spirit and Essence.pdf file in out case – over its data directories spread across the servers.

host # jexec storage1
root@storage1:/ # find /data?/test
/data1/test
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data2/test
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
root@storage1:/ # exit
host # jexec storage2
root@storage2:/ # find /data?/test
/data1/test
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data2/test
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data3/test
/data3/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data3/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data3/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data4/test
/data4/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data4/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data4/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data5/test
/data5/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data5/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data5/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data6/test
/data6/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data6/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data6/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data7/test
/data7/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data7/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data7/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
root@storage2:/ # exit
host # jexec storage3
root@storage3:/ # find /data?/test
/data1/test
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data1/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data2/test
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data2/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data3/test
/data3/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data3/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data3/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data4/test
/data4/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data4/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data4/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data5/test
/data5/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data5/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data5/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data6/test
/data6/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data6/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
/data6/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data7/test
/data7/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf
/data7/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/xl.json
/data7/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf/part.1
root@storage3:/ # exit

We can also see what Minio configuration file /usr/local/etc/minio/config.json has been generated.

host # jexec storage1
root@storage1:/ # cat /usr/local/etc/minio/config.json 
{
        "version": "22",
        "credential": {
                "accessKey": "alibaba",
                "secretKey": "0P3NS3S4M3"
        },
        "region": "",
        "browser": "on",
        "domain": "",
        "storageclass": {
                "standard": "",
                "rrs": ""
        },
        "notify": {
                "amqp": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "url": "",
                                "exchange": "",
                                "routingKey": "",
                                "exchangeType": "",
                                "deliveryMode": 0,
                                "mandatory": false,
                                "immediate": false,
                                "durable": false,
                                "internal": false,
                                "noWait": false,
                                "autoDeleted": false
                        }
                },
                "elasticsearch": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "format": "",
                                "url": "",
                                "index": ""
                        }
                },
                "kafka": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "brokers": null,
                                "topic": ""
                        }
                },
                "mqtt": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "broker": "",
                                "topic": "",
                                "qos": 0,
                                "clientId": "",
                                "username": "",
                                "password": "",
                                "reconnectInterval": 0,
                                "keepAliveInterval": 0
                        }
                },
                "mysql": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "format": "",
                                "dsnString": "",
                                "table": "",
                                "host": "",
                                "port": "",
                                "user": "",
                                "password": "",
                                "database": ""
                        }
                },
                "nats": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "address": "",
                                "subject": "",
                                "username": "",
                                "password": "",
                                "token": "",
                                "secure": false,
                                "pingInterval": 0,
                                "streaming": {
                                        "enable": false,
                                        "clusterID": "",
                                        "clientID": "",
                                        "async": false,
                                        "maxPubAcksInflight": 0
                                }
                        }
                },
                "postgresql": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "format": "",
                                "connectionString": "",
                                "table": "",
                                "host": "",
                                "port": "",
                                "user": "",
                                "password": "",
                                "database": ""
                        }
                },
                "redis": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "format": "",
                                "address": "",
                                "password": "",
                                "key": ""
                        }
                },
                "webhook": {
                        "1": {
                                "enable": false,
                                "endpoint": ""
                        }
                }
        }

S3FS

We can also mount that test bucket from out distributed Minio object storage cluster as filesystem using the S3FS project. Lets add s3fs package and mount our bucket.

host # pkg install -y fusefs-s3fs

Now we will configure password for our bucket.

host # echo test:alibaba:0P3NS3S4M3 > /root/.passwd-s3fs
host # chmod 600 /root/.passwd-s3fs
host # cat /root/.passwd-s3fs 
test:alibaba:0P3NS3S4M3

Now lets do the actual mount.

host # mkdir /tmp/test
host # s3fs \
  -o allow_other \
  -o use_path_request_style \
  -o url=http://192.168.43.101:9000 \
  -o passwd_file=/root/.passwd-s3fs \
  test /tmp/test

The file ThinkPad Design – Spirit and Essence.pdf that we put through web interface should be here.

host # exa -l /tmp/test
.--------- 10M root 2018-04-16 14:15 ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf

host # file /tmp/test/ThinkPad\ Design\ -\ Spirit\ and\ Essence.pdf 
/tmp/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf: PDF document, version 1.4

host # stat /tmp/test/ThinkPad\ Design\ -\ Spirit\ and\ Essence.pdf
3976265496 2 ---------- 1 root wheel 0 10416953 "Jan  1 01:00:00 1970" "Apr 16 14:35:35 2018" "Jan  1 01:00:00 1970" "Jan  1 00:59:59 1970" 4096 20346 0 /tmp/test/ThinkPad Design - Spirit and Essence.pdf

We can now upload other file into that bucket using s3fs mount.

host # cp -v /home/vermaden/On\ the\ Shortness\ of\ Life\ -\ Lucius\ Seneca.pdf /tmp/test
/home/vermaden/On the Shortness of Life - Lucius Seneca.pdf -> /tmp/test/On the Shortness of Life - Lucius Seneca.pdf

host # file /tmp/test/On\ the\ Shortness\ of\ Life\ -\ Lucius\ Seneca.pdf 
On the Shortness of Life - Lucius Seneca.pdf: PDF document, version 1.4

We can also verify that our file put through s3fs is visible on the web interface.

minio-browser-13-s3fs-upload

Real Hardware

Now, as we have working Proof of Concept for the distributed Minio setup how about putting it on a real hardware for real storage purposes? I would setup a 16 node Minio distributed server on a Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L hardware. Supermicro even suggests using that kind of servers for object storage, here is their white paper on that topic – Object Storage Solution for Data Archive using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and OpenIO SDS – but they use OpenIO not Minio for distributed object storage solution.

This server features the Supermicro X10SDV-7TP4F motherboard. This is important as this motherboard officially supports FreeBSD 11.x operating system on their Supermicro OS Compatibility page.

Motherboard specification has these features.

 1 x Intel Xeon D-1537 8-Core / 16-Threads TDP 35W
 4 x UDIMM for up to 128GB ECC RDIMM DDR4 2133MHz
12 x 3.5" SAS2/SATA3 Hot-Swap HDD Bays
 4 x 2.5" Cold-Swap HDD Bays
 1 x Controller Intel SoC for 4 SATA3 (6Gbps) Ports
 1 x Controller Broadcom 2116 for 16 SATA3 (6Gbps) Ports
 1 x Expansion Slot PCI-E 3.0 x8 
 1 x Expansion Slot M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4
 1 x Expansion Slot Mini-PCIe w/ mSATA Support
 2 x 10G SFP+ Port
 2 x 1GbE LAN Port
 2 x External USB 3.0 Port
 1 x Interlal USB 2.0 Port
 2 x 400W High-Rfficiency Redundant Power Supplies

You can configure your own and get approximated price using the Thinkmate site from here:
https://www.thinkmate.com/system/superstorage-server-5018d8-ar12l

I would add this components to the basic setup:

 4 x UDIMM FULL 128 GB ECC RDIMM DDR4
 2 x 240GB Micron 5100 MAX 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD
 2 x 7.68TB Micron 5200 ECO Series 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD
12 x 12TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM 3.5" Hitachi Ultrastarβ„’ He12
 3 x SanDisk Cruzer Fit 32GB USB 3.0

Now, I will use the 3 x SanDisk Cruzer Fit 32GB USB 3.0 disks to install FreeBSD as a ZFS root/boot pool with mirror + spare on these disks. We do not need performance here.

Then, the 12 x 12TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM 3.5″ Hitachi Ultrastarβ„’ He12 drives will be used as RAIDZ (RAID5 equivalent in ZFS without the write hole) for the Minio data, wich 11 + 1 setup, which means 11 drives for data and 1 drive for parity. As we can lose HALF of the Minio servers I would not waste 12 TB drive for spare here. Then, I would use 2 x 240GB Micron 5100 MAX 2.5″ SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD in mirror for the ZFS ZIL (ZFS Intent Log) to accelerate writes and 2 x 7.68TB Micron 5200 ECO Series 2.5″ SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD for the ZFS read cache (L2ARC).

The network would be setup on 2 x 10G SFP+ Port with LACP as lagg0 interface so each server would have 20 Gbit connectivity. This will give us a total of 320 Gbit theoretical network throughput.

This setup would give as 132 TB ZFS pool space with 15 TB for read cache and 240 GB for writes for single 1U server. Making the calculations this will give as 2112 TB (more then 2 PB) of space for Minio data.

With Minio algorithm for data redundancy we will have about 1 PB of usable storage space in our 16U Object Storage FreeBSD Appliance.

Not bad for my taste πŸ™‚

UPDATE 1

The Distributed Object Storage with Minio on FreeBSD article was included in the BSD Now 246 – Disclosure episode.

Thanks for mentioning!

EOF