A couple things that are lacking from the web administrative ZFS interface that would be nice... - a tool to schedule backups (Snapshot this filesystem every 2 hours) - a tool to schedule scrubs (Scrub this pool once every week) - a tool to configure notifications (Email the SysAdmin if a Disk Dies/etc.) I realize these things can be done via the command-line and cron, or by rolling your own script, but it we want to make ZFS accessible to the masses, I think these features would be beneficial. Has there been any discussion about these? In comparing Sun''s ZFS Administration Tool to NetApp''s these things seem to be missing. This message posted from opensolaris.org
Oh, one more thing - a tool to schedule the deletion of snapshots (Keep the past 14 Daily, 4 Weekly, 6 Monthly, etc.) This message posted from opensolaris.org
I haven''t used it myself, but the following blog describes an automatic snapshot facility: http://blogs.sun.com/timf/entry/zfs_automatic_snapshots_0_10 I agree that it would be nice to have this type of functionality built into the base product, however. This message posted from opensolaris.org
I''m just thinking out loud. What would be the advantage of having periodic snapshot taken within ZFS vs invoking it from an external facility? On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 1:21 AM, sean walmsley <sean at fpp.nuclearsafetysolutions.com> wrote:> I haven''t used it myself, but the following blog describes an automatic snapshot facility: > > http://blogs.sun.com/timf/entry/zfs_automatic_snapshots_0_10 > > I agree that it would be nice to have this type of functionality built into the base product, however. > > > > > This message posted from opensolaris.org > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss >-- Just me, Wire ... Blog: <prstat.blogspot.com>
On Apr 9, 2008, at 6:54 PM, Wee Yeh Tan wrote:> I''m just thinking out loud. What would be the advantage of having > periodic snapshot taken within ZFS vs invoking it from an external > facility?I suspect that the people requesting this really want a unified management tool (GUI and possibly CLI). Whether the actual implementation were inside of the filesystem code, or implemented via cron or equivalent is probably irrelevant. Their point, I think, is that we''ve got this nice "management free" technology ... except for these bits that still have to be done independently, and (to the non-unix experienced somewhat) arcane. If we aspire to achieve the sort of user friendlyness that is the Mac, then there''s work to be in this area ;> -- Keith H. Bierman khbkhb at gmail.com | AIM kbiermank 5430 Nassau Circle East | Cherry Hills Village, CO 80113 | 303-997-2749 <speaking for myself*> Copyright 2008
Thanks for the info, it looks like this is exactly what I need. However, I''m curious as to why the guys at Sun that are working on this aren''t building the ZFS GUI Administration into the existing, web-based ZFS Administration tool? It seems that they''re developing a GUI for the GNOME desktop. Anyone know why this is? This message posted from opensolaris.org
Aaron Epps wrote:> Thanks for the info, it looks like this is exactly what I need. However, I''m curious as to why the guys at Sun that are working on this aren''t building the ZFS GUI Administration into the existing, web-based ZFS Administration tool? It seems that they''re developing a GUI for the GNOME desktop. Anyone know why this is?The webbased admin tool is targeted at storage admins and is intended for remote admin of ZFS based storage. The desktop tool is targeted at desktop (end) users particularly when they have ZFS datasets delegated to them. -- Darren J Moffat
I would think that as an administrator of a ZFS storage pool, part of your administration would consist of setting up snapshots at various intervals for the different file systems. This functionality seems like something that should be added to the web-based admin tool. Again, I''m comparing ZFS to what NetApp currently offers, and they do indeed offer a web-based tool to configure the frequency of automatic snapshotting on volumes. This message posted from opensolaris.org
On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 5:54 PM, Wee Yeh Tan <weeyeh at gmail.com> wrote:> I''m just thinking out loud. What would be the advantage of having > periodic snapshot taken within ZFS vs invoking it from an external > facility?It''s been a while since I''ve dealt with a NetApp, but as I remember they have a pretty straight forward way to schedule snapshots and their retention. It would be nice to have a single place to define "keep the 6 most recent hourly snaps, then a nightly for the next 7 days" Whether the snapshots are created/removed from within the ZFS stack, or from a cron job that reads the config doesn''t matter, but having the configuration tied to the filesystem would be nice. You would inherit a snapshot schedule and retention policy, just like other filesystem properties. -B -- Brandon High bhigh at freaks.com "The good is the enemy of the best." - Nietzsche
> It would be nice to have a single place to define "keep the 6 most > recent hourly snaps, then a nightly for the next 7 days" > > Whether the snapshots are created/removed from within the ZFS stack, > or from a cron job that reads the config doesn''t matter, but having > the configuration tied to the filesystem would be nice. You would > inherit a snapshot schedule and retention policy, just like other > filesystem properties. >+1. I have an (unpretty) script that does these things, but it would be good to think of a backup schedule as effectively a filesystem attribute. This decreases the number of scripts needed and the number of things to forget when rolling out a new system. Chris