Linux Server (NAS)

[oimi]

Have you built your server yet?

In terms of hardware, yes.

[oimi]

I've gone with MSDOS for the partition table.

I'm partitioning the drives now, so someone please remind me what size I should use for the debian installation and allowing for updates, as well as space needed for SWAP and RAM?

Thank you so much.

[peterb]

Yes, I am using AMD64!

Woah, that looks like a lot of reading having loaded up those links...

"Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted."

Attributed to Napoleon I: Maxims of War, 1831

Partitioning - one for /, one for /var one for /home - you will need a small one for /boot. and another one that will be used for the swap file. Rule of thumbv used to be double the size of RAM, but IMHO that is a bit ott - probably equal to ram size will be fine. That is on the system disk. You then want a mount point(s) for the storage disc - how you partition that is really a matter of preference - and each partition can have its own mount pount in thye filesystem.

[oimi]

Okay, thanks for that.

100MB for boot partition, 
4GB for SWAP partition
20GB for /

Not sure about /home or /var.

[SiM]

I did 100mb for /boot, 10gb for /, 3gb for /var and 3gb for swap. This is with ubuntu server and I have had no problems. You do not need to do separate /home, just mount the rest of the space in a subfolder within the home folder and put all your files there

[oimi]

I did 100mb for /boot, 10gb for /, 3gb for /var and 3gb for swap. This is with ubuntu server and I have had no problems. You do not need to do separate /home, just mount the rest of the space in a subfolder within the home folder and put all your files there

Thank you for your thoughts. What about if I want the /home partition on the 3x1TB HDD array?

[oimi]

How would I go about doing that?

If I create the following partitions:

/boot @ 100MB
/ @ 20GB
/var @20GB
/tmp @ 10GB
SWAP @ 2GB

Debian is installed in "/"? What is the difference between that and /boot?

Please could you also tell me what specifically is the need for /usr?

[peterb]

20 Gb is probably too much for / Sim's layout sounds about right.

Remember that the file system is not hard drive centric (unlike windows). As a user do you care where the physical location of the data is? For all you care, it can be on any disk, on a lan, or using iSCSI, anywhere on the internet. Of course as the admin - you do care, because it is imporrtant to know what to back up. Remeber you - as a computer/system owner, have two roles - one as admin - where you will use rootly privileges, and one as user, when you will only need low priviliges.

So to go back to your question. about /home. Yoiu may get the option to define /home as part of the set up, but if not, or as a general principle, how do you add a hard drive to the file system?

Let us say you want to add /music to your file system. You add the mountpoint /music using the mkdir command from /. Do once you have a terminal window open with rootly privilges.

These ommands are for Fedora - ubmtu shouldn't be that different - but check!!!

cd /
mkdir music

ls -l

This will list all the directories and files in / and you should see music. Note that this does not exist anywhere - it is a mountpoint on the file system.

Now let us say that you have a partition on drive sdb. The first partition will be sdb1. you can mount this using the command in generic terms "mount something somewhere"

mount /dev/sdb1 /music (you might need a few options there)

Now if you go to /music - you will see the files.

If you want that mounted automatically you need to edit a config file, in fedora it is /etc/fstab

so using a text editor (I generally use vim)

vim /etc/fstab

and enter a line like this....

/dev/hda7 /mnt/windows ntfs-3g auto,user 0 0

This is acually a line from my fstab file and it means

auto mount at start up partition 7 on device hda at mount point /mnt/windows and recognise it as an ntfs partition.

Again read up on fstab (use command man fstab) to see how to add entries.

This is another entry

/dev/system/var /var ext3 defaults 1 2

Here /dev/system/var is part of a logical volume called var on a logical group called system. (The logical group consists of several partitions on a drive - or could be many drives)

So I mount at start up an ext3 filesystem at mountpoint /var the partition /dev/system/var

Note how neat this is - I have different file systems mounted on the same tree. As a user I neither know (nor care) what the file systems are, or where they are, I just use them. Even neater, you can mount the same partition at different mountpoints if you want to - bu beware, if you have a partition mounted, and you mount something else at the same mountpoint, the first set of files will be inaccessible until the second file system is unmounted - but you could mount that first filesystem somewhere else.

If it all sounds a bit confusing, remeber that the centerwe of the world is not the hard drive - it is the file system. Windows has tried to achieve that with a desktop centric view - the desktop contains hard drive partitions, but to my mind it is a bit of a kludge - but if it helps you to grasp the concept, think of it in that way - but it is really better than that.

[oimi]

*Jaw drop"

[oimi]

Thanks for that very complicated explanation

When creating the partitions, is the primary partition "/"? and the logical "/boot"? I'm assuming that Debian will install to "/" and not "/boot".

[oimi]

I'm guessing that the primary partition is "/" as this is the root for Debian.

I'm now on this screen:

[!!] Partition Disks

 Partition settings:

               Use as:                  Ext3 journaling file system
               Mount point:             /
               Mount options:           defaults
               Label:                   /
               Reserved blocks          20GB
               Typical useage:          standard
               Bootable flag:           off
               
 

               Copy data from another partition
               Delete the partition
               Done setting up the partition
 

    <Go Back>

Do I keep the file system mentioned above? Are these settings okay?

Will I need to choose any other settings for the other partitions?

[aidanjt]

A large root will do ok, you should probably also have a 1 or 2GB swap, just in case. Any additional space after that should probably go to /home.

[Splash]

A large root will do ok

..and I have a new sigquote

[oimi]

Thank you, is that the right partition system to use?

[aidanjt]

Thank you, is that the right partition system to use?

There's really no 'right' partition setup, it's a bit of an art form, which you'll refine with experience for each given situation. The partition scheme I mentioned is the one which will give you the least hassle since it's relatively simple.

[aidanjt]

..and I have a new sigquote

lol, I didn't even consider it being read like that.