[CDBUG-talk] NAS hardware - MaxAttach 3000

[Jaime]

On Feb 10, 2008, at 10:17 PM, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
> granite# uname -a
> FreeBSD granite. 2.05.3075.17 FreeBSD 2.05.3075.17 #2: Thu Nov  1  
> 15:23:58
> PST 2001     root at host26.nsgdev.com:/usr/src/sys/compile/ 
> GRANITE.DEBUG  i386
>

	Wow...  A custom kernel that was compiled in 2001 for an OS version  
that was out of date in 1997.  I'm not sure what advice to give.


> Would it be worth it (read: fairly easy i.e. inplace upgrade) to  
> bring it up
> to 3.x?

	Actually, back then it would have been 2.0 to 2.1, then 2.1 to 2.2.   
THEN 3.0, 4.0, etc.

	3.0 introduced some significant changes.  When I had a decade less  
experience than I do today, I tried a 2.2.x to 3.0 update and  
permanently killed the OS.  If you follow the directions in /usr/src/ 
UPDATING very carefully, you might do better than I did, but I  
wouldn't count on it.

	It *might* be worthwhile to go to 2.1 and then 2.2 and then 2.2- 
STABLE (which would be the most current source code in that branch),  
but I wouldn't risk it.  Who knows what customizations they put in and  
what you'd break....


> Correct, and by more modern, I was referring to the version of  
> FreeBSD.
> Rather than trying to figure out what the original dev team did to  
> support
> this HW and patching the flaws, I was figuring that it may be faster  
> to
> start with a more up-to-date version of the OS. Unless somebody has  
> a 128
> Meg SODIMM (PC100 probably) collecting dust, I guess I'd be stuck at  
> 32
> Megs.


	I *MIGHT* have a PC100 stick around here somewhere.  No idea of the  
size, though.


>> Fortunately, even the current stable release of FreeBSD can
>> handle that little RAM.  It won't win any races, but it will work.
>>
>> http://www.freebsd.org/releases/6.3R/installation-i386.html
>
> I dare say if it could be done, it would work better than it does now.
>
> I think the OS and swap partitions are 32 Megs and 10 Megs, I'm  
> figuring
> that would have to change. /bin has about 24 files in it, and /etc  
> has about
> 60, so it's stripped down pretty far. What would a stripped down  
> version of
> 6.3 require?

	I'm not sure.  My advice, if you're going to try this at all, would  
be to use dd to backup the existing system in case you want to revert  
it.  Then look at PicoBSD (a sub-project of FreeBSD not dissimilar to  
Damn Small Linux minus the GUI and apps) for a minimal install.   
Otherwise, put in something like RAM x 2 for swap and at least 200MB  
on the OS.  That should give you a tiny bit of breathing room for  
editing configs and possibly compiling OS upgrades.  Use a binary  
install and only put in the base OS.  But I've never tried anything so  
tight, myself.

							Good luck,
							Jaime