I have a client with a handful of USB drives connected to a CentOS box. I am charged with binding the USB drives together into a single LVM for a cheap storage data pool (10 x 1 TB usb drives = 10 TB cheap storage in a single mount point). The next fun piece is how to incorporate that storage space into an existing Active Directory structure to apply AD acls for limited access. I'd rather not use Samba, as that is its own infrastructure and maintains its own credentials database. What are my best options? Thanks. Scott
Scott Ehrlich wrote:> I have a client with a handful of USB drives connected to a CentOS > box. I am charged with binding the USB drives together into a single > LVM for a cheap storage data pool (10 x 1 TB usb drives = 10 TB cheap > storage in a single mount point). > > The next fun piece is how to incorporate that storage space into an > existing Active Directory structure to apply AD acls for limited > access. > > I'd rather not use Samba, as that is its own infrastructure and > maintains its own credentials database. > > What are my best options? >Why would you use USB disks? Even if you could put up with not-so-stellar speed, the tangle of cables & powerpacks would be messy and prone to accidental disconnect. On top of that, using only LVM to glue it all together would really exacerbate the disconnect problem. A single disk failure could bring the entire volume down with no recourse but to restore from backup. That's another thing - is this data valuable? If so, you need to have an idea for backups. Ditch the crazy USB scheme and get better hardware - raid/hotswap. And a 10 drive, 10TB raid5 is also going to be a headache. There's been several recent discussions here about such matters - large volume filesystems, SW raid vs HW raid, raid types, LVM, etc. Look through the archives. -- tkb
Scott Ehrlich wrote:> I have a client with a handful of USB drives connected to a CentOS > box. I am charged with binding the USB drives together into a single > LVM for a cheap storage data pool (10 x 1 TB usb drives = 10 TB cheap > storage in a single mount point). > > The next fun piece is how to incorporate that storage space into an > existing Active Directory structure to apply AD acls for limited > access. > > I'd rather not use Samba, as that is its own infrastructure and > maintains its own credentials database. >The answer to your AD question is Samba. It integrates into AD perfectly well. Search the Centos archives. samba.org has extensive info on the subject. -- tkb
Scott Ehrlich wrote:> What are my best options?The mere thought of doing what your tasked with doing makes me want to drink a lot of hard alcohol. As another poster noted get a more proper storage system. If it were me I would just hook the drives to one of the existing windows servers and use dynamic partitions to do the same thing, when a disk fails and they lose some/most/all of their data at least they won't be able to point the finger at linux http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363785(VS.85).aspx There are plenty of low cost off the shelf NAS solutions, I don't have experience with any of them personally, but would absolutely positively never implement what your being tasked with. That client would not be worth keeping as they are obviously a @#$ idiot. nate
> The mere thought of doing what your tasked with doing makes me > want to drink a lot of hard alcohol.HA! This thread really made my day. I liken this to applying duct tape to the wings of a 747. I would look out the window and say, "Neat!" nate: that quote is going on my wall at work. So long and thanks for all the fish.
On 12/15/09 2:48 PM, Scott Ehrlich wrote:> I have a client with a handful of USB drives connected to a CentOS > box. I am charged with binding the USB drives together into a single > LVM for a cheap storage data pool (10 x 1 TB usb drives = 10 TB cheap > storage in a single mount point).Err.. buy computer from supermicro and load it with 10 sata disks. http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/2U/?chs=213 -- Eero
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:30:13PM -0500, Kristopher Kane wrote:> > I liken this to applying duct tape to the wings of a 747. > > I would look out the window and say, "Neat!"...and then change your ticket as fast as humanly possible. :) --keith -- kkeller at speakeasy.net
On Tue, 15 Dec 2009, Scott Ehrlich wrote:> I have a client with a handful of USB drives connected to a CentOS > box. I am charged with binding the USB drives together into a single > LVM for a cheap storage data pool (10 x 1 TB usb drives = 10 TB cheap > storage in a single mount point).I tried doing this for fun once upon a time, using 6 1TB drives. I can save you a lot of grief by suggesting that you don't think about this any further. Boy is it slow. And extremely unreliable. And slow. Don't even do it for backups. Did I say it was slow? Steve ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Thompson E-mail: smt AT vgersoft DOT com Voyager Software LLC Web: http://www DOT vgersoft DOT com 39 Smugglers Path VSW Support: support AT vgersoft DOT com Ithaca, NY 14850 "186,300 miles per second: it's not just a good idea, it's the law" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chan Chung Hang Christopher
2009-Dec-16 14:31 UTC
[CentOS] LVM, usb drives, Active Directory
Scott Ehrlich wrote:> I have a client with a handful of USB drives connected to a CentOS > box. I am charged with binding the USB drives together into a single > LVM for a cheap storage data pool (10 x 1 TB usb drives = 10 TB cheap > storage in a single mount point).How about eSATA? Surely an eSATA enclosure for 10 drives won't be more expensive than ten individual usb enclosures?!> > The next fun piece is how to incorporate that storage space into an > existing Active Directory structure to apply AD acls for limited > access.AD does not have acls. NTFS does. The closet things to NTFS acls in UNIX is nfs4 acls. That you can get with ZFS. I suggest that you give OpenSolaris a shot instead. Or you can be one of the testers for ntfs-3g's acl implementation...> > I'd rather not use Samba, as that is its own infrastructure and > maintains its own credentials database.Have you ever used winbind? It maps AD credentials to POSIX credentials.> > What are my best options?Stuff not provided by Centos/RHEL at the moment.
On 12/16/2009 12:10 AM, Eero Volotinen wrote:> On 12/15/09 2:48 PM, Scott Ehrlich wrote: > >> I have a client with a handful of USB drives connected to a CentOS >> box. I am charged with binding the USB drives together into a single >> LVM for a cheap storage data pool (10 x 1 TB usb drives = 10 TB cheap >> storage in a single mount point). >> > Err.. buy computer from supermicro and load it with 10 sata disks. > > http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/2U/?chs=213 > > -- > Eero > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > >Still going to need 10TB of backups. And i can guarantee you the chances of having a URE during rebuild are almost certain with this setup so a backup is going to be crucial. Sounds like a nightmare even inside a supermicro or similar box.
On 12/15/2009 7:48 AM, Scott Ehrlich wrote:> I have a client with a handful of USB drives connected to a CentOS > box. I am charged with binding the USB drives together into a single > LVM for a cheap storage data pool (10 x 1 TB usb drives = 10 TB cheap > storage in a single mount point). >(snip)> What are my best options? >Um, don't? Like other people said, go with eSATA, hopefully hooked up to a 4-drive or 8-drive enclosure (or even a 10-drive enclosure). Alternately, go with an external SAS storage rack that supports both SAS / SATA drives. A SAS card for PCIe is fairly inexpensive ($200?) and the external enclosures are probably going to be (but not certainly) better made then inexpensive SATA enclosures. The big problem with USB is that it only supports about 25MB/s per port, which means that it's going to be very very slow. Modern hard drives can push 50-80MB/s easily.