Very Computer

I've read (and read and read) to determine if there are limiting
factors to the amount of HD space mountable under Linux.
We are setting up a POP to support the student population of a small
campus, and a storage minimum of 5MB per student has been established.
My understanding from the SCSI-HOWTO is that Linux can handle drives
up to a Terabyte. what we actually need is the ability to handle at
least 61Gig
Questions:
1. Is there a memory limitation similar to novell in that novell must
have enough memory to hold the tables for the volume size it is
mounting. I seem to remember reading somewhere (and I've tried to find
it) that Linux uses memory for the inodes on the drive....if so, how
much does it require?

2. If it does require memory, is it possible to boot linux from a
smaller partition (obviously we have to boot from one with < 1024 cyl
anyway), then, mount the extra partitions AFTER mounting the swap
partitions? (i.e. will the inode tables be swapped to the swapfile and
allow us to mount the huge partitions that way)

3. If that doesn't work, would it be possible to spread things out a
bit by adding additional servers and mounting thier volumes as NFS,
then use them for the users home directories? (i.e. what are the
memory requirements for mounting an NFS volume...obviously less than
mounting a physical drive that large, but how much less?)

4. Has anyone made use of the NFS volume provided by IBM Lan File
Services/ESA with a Linux system? (for humor I should interject here
that I thought the Mainframers were gonna pass out when we told them
in a meeting we wanted to consider sucking up 61Gig of thier shiny new
DASD...I thought the tape backup guy was gonna have a heart attack
when we started talking about ADSM:) and the IBM rep went all starry
eyed like he was gonna retire after selling us another one maybe:)

5. On a little different track, has anyone thought of a nifty way to
place user home directories under home but on another drive?
I've considered rranging them under home/home1/user...home/home2/user,
but maybe someone knows of a better way that would require a less
complicated script (we're importing a list), and less administration:)

6. Anyone had any experience (read problems) running Linux on a Compaq
Prosignia 5000 server?

I know this is long, and I apologize once again. While I've run Linux
for a while, I've never seen anyone talk about mounting more than
about 10Gig....so I thought I'd best check out the answers to this
stuff prior to committing myself to administrative hell:)

Thanks,
Steve Walker

: 5. On a little different track, has anyone thought of a nifty way to
: place user home directories under home but on another drive?
: I've considered rranging them under home/home1/user...home/home2/user,
: but maybe someone knows of a better way that would require a less
: complicated script (we're importing a list), and less administration:)

A nifty little way that I did it was just to:

cd /home
find . | cpio -pd /usr/home
rm -rf home
ln -s /usr/home home

My /usr partition is on a separate drive, and I wanted to move the homes
there because my root partition is really small and they were taking up
too much room.  I didn't have to do anything else :).  You could put them
on an NFS-mountable drive, I suppose, too.

The only restriction is that I have my root user's home directory on the
root partition still.  That may be a requirement, but I doubt it.  It
would probably work anyway.

Good luck with your 61GB drive.  I wish I could help you, but I don't
know enough about the memory requirements of mounting drives...  :(

--
Westheimer's Discovery:
        A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of
hours in the library.

Quote:>1. Is there a memory limitation similar to novell in that novell must
>have enough memory to hold the tables for the volume size it is
>mounting. I seem to remember reading somewhere (and I've tried to find
>it) that Linux uses memory for the inodes on the drive....if so, how
>much does it require?

Quote:>2. If it does require memory, is it possible to boot linux from a
>smaller partition (obviously we have to boot from one with < 1024 cyl
>anyway), then, mount the extra partitions AFTER mounting the swap
>partitions? (i.e. will the inode tables be swapped to the swapfile and
>allow us to mount the huge partitions that way)

Quote:>4. Has anyone made use of the NFS volume provided by IBM Lan File
>Services/ESA with a Linux system? (for humor I should interject here
>that I thought the Mainframers were gonna pass out when we told them
>in a meeting we wanted to consider sucking up 61Gig of thier shiny new
>DASD...I thought the tape backup guy was gonna have a heart attack
>when we started talking about ADSM:) and the IBM rep went all starry
>eyed like he was gonna retire after selling us another one maybe:)

Quote:>5. On a little different track, has anyone thought of a nifty way to
>place user home directories under home but on another drive?
>I've considered rranging them under home/home1/user...home/home2/user,
>but maybe someone knows of a better way that would require a less
>complicated script (we're importing a list), and less administration:)

Rob
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Since you're at Columbia, I should ask you if you're a staff member,
we may be able to collaborate on some projects going on in my
department (Information Services/Client Services) and some going on in
the CS department here at CMSU (Warrensburg)

Steve Walker

Kevin.  (http://www.io.org/~kcozens/)

In decreasing likelihood of getting mail through to me:

#include <disclaimer/favourite>

Did I expect the Mainframers to pass out....nope...but it was fun to
watch thier mouths* open:)
61 Gig isn't a lot really, but we're operating a System/370 which
isn't really a large system as Mainframes go...only has about 80GB...
For backup they are still using a manual tape system:)

Quote:>>5. On a little different track, has anyone thought of a nifty way to
>>place user home directories under home but on another drive?
>>I've considered rranging them under home/home1/user...home/home2/user,
>>but maybe someone knows of a better way that would require a less
>>complicated script (we're importing a list), and less administration:)
>Use symbolic links.

Steve Walker