Full Build HL15 - pre-load | clean install discrepencies

Software & Applications
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I’ve now performed a clean install of Rocky 8 to test the waters in comparison to the pre-install, as I’ve noticed some issues in the pre-install as well as when trying Ubuntu 20.04.

45Drives Disks - Not working, dalias not present
I’ve figured out my issues with the 45Drives Disks tab missing, and the User Manual provided points me towards running sudo dalias -t HL15 which greets me with a command not found.

I popped back in to the pre-install and checked which dalias and located it in usr/bin/dalias. Looking for it via dnf provides dalias is a bit troubling. It seems the package 45drives-tools is out of date in the stable repo and it cannot be pulled.
The pre-install can be seen here:

pre-install
pre-install1102×207 65.9 KB

And my clean install can be seen here:

clean-install
clean-install1226×167 9.35 KB

Edit: Updates
I was able to pull the newer version of the 45Drives-Tools package from the testing repo, which confirms my thoughts that some of the packages included in the HL15 are not in the stable repo. Again, more than happy to be testing, but with a bit of disclosure of what’s in my environment and what to expect.
dnf install https://repo.45drives.com/rhel/el8/testing/noarch/mpi3mr-dkms-8.6.1.0.0-45d1.el8.noarch.rpm dnf install https://repo.45drives.com/rhel/el8/testing/x86_64/45drives-tools-3.0.1-2.el8.x86_64.rpm

The first package was listed as a dependency and was present on the hl15 pre-install. After performing the installs, I am now able to run the dalia command listed in the User Manual.

45Drives System - HL15 not recognized on clean install
I was able to get the 45Drives System page to load now, but had to do so by copying over /etc/45drives/system_info/system_info.json which was blank on the clean install. The picture of the HL15 is not present on the clean install, which looks like a similar issue where the package cockpit-45drives-hardware was installed at commandline and is behind in the stable repo.

Software Updates - Missing tab in HL15 Pre-install
The Software Updates tab was missing from the pre-install, however was present on a clean install. This looks like it was due to the package cockpit-packagekit missing from the pre-install. While this one feels a bit pedantic on my part, it is listed in the FAQ section in the User Manual. Which would likely leave a newer homelabber frustrated and possibly causing them to wipe and install another OS.

General Feedback
I’m happy to rock on with either the pre-install or a clean manual install of Rocky 8, but I’d like to know what to expect from either path. If running the pre-install means having packages from the testing repo vs the stable repo, so be it! I love bug hunting, and will happily contribute to a bugzilla or github page, with the understanding this isn’t a production support level thing. In my personal opinion, what makes many of the other NAS “distro’s” so appealing is their large community relationship with the parent company. What I don’t want to do is feel like a pest by shouting into the void, or contributing bug reports that will never be looked at.

However, if I have to run a clean install and manually handle it myself, that is also completely fine. But, I see a LOT of value in the Houston UI. It is head and shoulders better than any NAS UI I’ve used in the past, and would be a large contributing factor for 45Homelab’s attractiveness. The modules 45Drives has contributed to Cockpit (zfs, identities, file sharing, navigator, etc.) are fantastic, and really help make this shine as a viable NAS.

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HI @orix, The main stable repo is also used for our enterprise customers so this is why we haven’t fully updated it with the packages the HL15 uses yet.

To get your fresh install working you would need to enable the testing repo to get the proper up-to-date packages that support the HL15. This should resolve most of the issues you are having above.

We are always looking for feedback from our customers to make sure we are delivering the best experience for them so please keep it coming so we can better improve all our customer’s experiences.

We are working on adding these to the stable repo but we have just been busy with orders and have not had the time to fully validate all the needed packages for the enterprise workspace

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Hi Hutch,

That is all entirely understandable. I do wish more of it was communicated earlier on. The missing packages from even the HL15 pre-load of Rocky is really the one that surprises me the most, as it refers to things in the User Manual.

I really want to drive the point home that I see a bright future for Houston as a proper home NAS solution. Obviously there will be some growing pains, but the methodology of just a pane of glass on top of a Linux OS is refreshing after dealing with countless “use the GUI, not the CLI” types of systems. But for some of us working CLI all day, coming home to something GUI only driven can be a nightmare when it breaks. Where Houston/Cockpit feels so “Hey, I’m here if you need me or a quick look at those logs”, which could be a huge boon to anyone just learning managing a Linux server.

I know it feels like adding more work, as I’m very familiar with working in a software shop, but adding a repo or branch for the 45Homelab products may be a nice middle ground. This lets Dev and QA keep a testing repo, a sort of “Beta” release channel for the 45HL products (think early adopters or RC builds), and keep a clean lean Enterprise Prod repo.

I know Houston is not 45Drive’s main product, and that is the Storinator and similar systems, as it is unique. But I’m really excited to see it flesh out and hopefully watch the adoption rate in here climb. It’s a nice no nonsense UI!

1 Like
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Hey @Hutch-45Drives,

Thanks again for the tip on the testing repo. This resolves two large items:

45Drives System - HL15 not recognized on clean install

  • The images of the system and message of “unsupported system” are no longer present

45Drives Disks - Missing dalias package, after installing manually no images and errors of “unsupported system”

  • This would have also fixed the dalias missing package, but I pulled that in manually last night. Pulling the testing repo now shows the drive/backplane images properly and disk health!

In case anyone stumbles upon this, steps taken to resolve were as follows (this is by no means official, and ultimately you should follow any advices or documentation from 45Drives staff and KB’s)

Refresh repo
dnf update -y
Edit the repo conf
vim /etc/yum.repos.d/45drives.repo

Locate and change the line under [45drives_testing] enabled = 0 to enabled = 1

Leaving you with something like this:

[45drives_testing]
enabled = 1
priority = 1
gpgcheck = 1
repo_gpgcheck = 1
baseurl = Index of /rhel/el8/testing/
gpgkey = https://repo.45drives.com/key/gpg.asc
name = 45Drives EL8 Testing

Perform another repo refresh:
dnf update -y

Finally, restart Cockpit via the services tab or in the terminal with:
systemctl restart cockpit

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Where are we supposed to find /etc/45drives/system_info/system_info.json file on a clean install with ubuntu 20.04 the preconfigured script doesn’t seem to support HL15.

Anyone have any success?

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You should just be able to enable the testing repo and then pull down the new version of tools and run “dmap” which will setup the aliasing and the server info.

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I am back up and running with a clean rocky 8 install, then a dnf update, the 45drives preconfig script, and enabling test repo. Dmap didn’t do anything. but the dalias -t HL15 got the disks tab setup. only thing broken appears to be the icons within cockpit.

Now onto testing my SAS drives.

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Have you seen this thread?

https://forum.45homelab.com/t/zfs-write-errors-with-hl15-full-build-and-sas-drives/827

It’s a long thread, but the bottom line is there appears to be issues for some people with the 45Drives supplied SFF-8643/SFF-8643 cables and the onboard HBA when the SAS drives are operating at 12 gbps.

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FYI - 45Drives has a “Band-aid” fix on their github for the icon issue.

https://github.com/45Drives/scripts/tree/main/cockpit_font_fix

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@DigitalGarden ,
Yes, I’ve been following that thread. I’m running FIO (based on @rymandle05 settings from the first post) on my 6 x 8 Tb HUH728080AL4200 in a raidz2 now.

I will post any results or questions in that thread.

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