N5200: new module UTILS

[omega]

Hi,

I've created a new module named UTILS.

First of all: there are two download links for this module shown at the Thecus Wiki. The first one is a temporary link to some file space provided by www.file.to and will be removed as soon as this module has been uploaded to the Thecus Wiki file space.

This module provides several programs which are either not part of the Thecus firmware or which have only reduced functionality e.g. because they are part of busybox.

These programs are only available in the shell: so you need to login to your Thecus via SSH. For this you need to have the modules SSHD and SYSUSER installed.

All programs are prefixed with "ut_" in order to avoid name clashes with already existing programs. After installation of this module the search path (PATH variable) has been augmented so these programs are found by just issuing the command name. There is no need to specify the absolute path.

Here comes a list of the programs which are installed by this module:

* ut_joe - The JOE text editor.
* ut_diff - Show differences between two files.
* ut_lspci - Show PCI devices.
* ut_tune2fs - Tune parameters of EXT2/EXT3 filesystems.
* ut_od - Show octal/hex dump of a file.
* ut_ps - Show running processes.
* ut_top - Show top list of processes.
* ut_vmstat - Show memory and disk I/O statistics.

Finally the popular JOE text editor is available with module - quite a lot of people have asked for it - here it is

Due to the actual discussion about wasted disk space for the data partition this module provides the tune2fs program. This program is installed with the name ut_tune2fs due to the common naming scheme of this module.

With this program you can set the percentage of disk space reserved to the root user to 0%. The standard is 5% but this is not needed for a data partition.

Please check first which device name is used for your data partition. Normally this is /dev/vg0/lv0, but you can find this out with the command
df /raid/data
The very fisrt column gives you the device name of the data partition. Just use that name for the following commands.

With the command
ut_tune2fs -l /dev/vg0/lv0
you can display the contents of the EXT2/EXT3 superblock.

With the command
ut_tune2fs -m 0 /dev/vg0/lv0
you can set the percentage of reserved disk space to 0%.

With the command
ut_tune2fs -m 5 /dev/vg0/lv0
you can reset the percentage of reserved disk space to 5%.

You can verify the actual percentage setting with the command ut_tunefs -l /dev/vg0/lv0
by checking the value of the parameter "Reserved block count".
You will see the difference before and after the modification in the output of the df /raid/data command in the Available column.

Hope you'll enjoy this module.

Andreas

[georg54]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for your trouble, the program tune2fs is great

but the percentage of reserved disk space for root on my n5200 already on 0%...

I did nothing
but built the raid under firmware 2.00.01

br georg

[omega]

How did you check it?
I've checked again the Thecus scripts but yet I couldn't find the code where they set the percentage to 0%.

But one thing is out of question: at least when you do an upgrade to 2.00.01 with existing RAIDs then the percentage is set to 5%.

Let's see what other users are telling here.

Andreas

[thecususer]

Omega: Thanks for the utilities. My current system shows 5% reserved space. ut_tune2fs allows it to be reduced to 0%.

[georg54]

Hi Andreas,

install UTILS
ut_tunefs -l /dev/vg0/lv0

tune2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
...
Reserved blocks uid: 0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid: 0 (group root)

br Georg

[omega]

Hi Georg,

I fear you're looking to the wrong variables.....

Reserved blocks uid: 0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid: 0 (group root)

These are the UID and GID (user ID and group ID) of the user who is allowed to use the reserved blocks (if there are any).

The variable which holds the amount of reserved blocks is named "Reserved block count", please check the value of this variable.
Initially that value should be 5% of the variable "Block Count" and comes just after that variable.

Andreas

[georg54]

Sorry Andreas,

but 1 day.. to my vacation

ut_tunefs -l /dev/vg0/lv0

Block count: 310195200
Reserved block count: 0
Free blocks: 229330582

Georg

[omega]

georg54 said:

ut_tunefs -l /dev/vg0/lv0

Block count: 310195200
Reserved block count: 0
Free blocks: 229330582

Then your initial statement still holds: until now it seems that there is a difference if the RAID has been created with a 2.00.* version or if the RAID has been upgraded from an 1.00.* version.

I've checked the Thecus code if they are setting the reserved disk space to 0% in 2.00.* but I didn't found anything, so I still wonder why there is a difference.

Andreas

[wolfpack]

Good morning Andreas "God" Omega!

Me, aka. the linux noob got another problem:



Firmware:
2.00.01

Installed Modules:
INFO 2.00.02
SSHD 2.00.00
SYSUSER 2.00.02
UTILS 2.00.00

I guess you will laugh now, but I really don't get it why it can't execute the file... :-(

[peanuts]

Have a similar problem: ut_tune2fs worked after I had installed and enabled the UTILS module. After reboot it didn't work anymore and I had to disable/enable UTILS again. Looks like the path environment variable gets "lost".

However, when you cd to the bin directory ./ut_tune2fs should work.

Haven't tried this yet, though.

[wolfpack]

Yahooooo!!! ;D ;D ;D

I just made 93 GB space usable!

Peanuts, thank you very much! I disabled the module, re-enabled it, logged in via SSH an there we go. I could call up tune2fs from the root and everything is fine!

Thank you OMEGA for this great piece of work!!!

[omega]

First of all: fine that it is basically working....

Looks like the path environment variable gets "lost".

Sh*t, I forgot to test to reboot and therefore didn't noticed that the shell profile gets reset after every reboot.

No big deal though, I'll do the profile modifications on module startup in the future so it should always work.

Andreas