Around a decade ago, I was happy to learn about bcache – a Linux block cache system that implements tiered storage (like a pool of hard disks with SSDs for cache) on Linux. At that stage, ZFS on Linux was nowhere close to where it is today, so any progress on gaining more ZFS features in general Linux systems was very welcome. These days we care a bit less about tiered storage, since any cost benefit in using anything else than nvme tends to quickly evaporate compared to time you eventually...| Jonathan Carter
Years ago, I sent away my HP N40L because I'd assembled a successor. At the end of 2023, I brought it home due to boot errors. Now, it has returned to service.| The Haranguer
Last week’s laptop review reminds me that I should also write about a new server purchase. (I know, everyone’s moving to cloud computing, and here I am buying a rackmount server to colocate..) Kelly Sommers has one of the best dev blogs out there, and she recently wrote about a new server she’s installing at […]| Chris Ball
It took until the early hours this morning, but the last device in the NAS passed its scrub. Although some data was corrupted due to loose kapton tape| The Haranguer
Fixing a BTRFS array with "unprepared sectors" using some command line magic.| The Haranguer
I'd like to argue that both ZFS and BTRFS both are incomplete file systems with their own drawbacks and that it may still be a long way off before we have something truly great. Both ZFS and BTRFS are two heroic feats of engineering, created by people who are probably …| Louwrentius
New experiment to install Debian from GRML Live boot| Random Ramblings
In our previous article we described an idea setup for a modern server with btrfs for flexibility and redundancy. In this article we describe another kind of setup that is ideal only for a backup server. For a backup server redundancy and high availability are not important, but instead maximal disk space capacity and the […]| Linux-natives
Btrfs is probably the most modern filesystem of all widely used filesystems on Linux. In this article we explain how to use Btrfs as the only filesystem on a server machine, and how that enables some sweet capabilities, like very resilient RAID-1, flexible adding or replacing of disk drives, using snapshots for quick backups and […]| Linux-natives
Btrfs (pronounced Better FS) is a relatively new filesystem that operates on the copy-on-write principle (abbreviated COW, which stems a more friendly pronunciation for btrfs: Butter FS). Btrfs includes a lot of interesting functionality and replaces traditional Linux disk and filesystem tools like LVM (volume manager, disk snapshots) and mdadm (software RAID). In RAID usage btrfs is much more flexible […]| Linux-natives
You probably want to take advantage of the data integrity checking offered by Btrfs. Btrfs calculates checksums for all data written to disk. These checksums are used to verify the data hasn’t been unduly altered. While data is verified every time it is read, what about the data that isn’t read often? How long may bit rot go unnoticed in that case? That’s the crux of this blog post which will explain how to best preserve your data on Btrfs and detect corruption early.| JWillikers
So, you’ve got libvirt installed on your Linux box and your looking for a simple application for running virtual machines. Look no further than Boxes, so far as it meets your needs, of course. What’s that you ask? What do you need to figure out to run on this on a Btrfs filesystem? Well, you’ve come to the right place! This post describes how to install and accommodate Boxes on Btrfs.| JWillikers
If you want to run virtual machines on Linux, chances are you’re going to use libvirt. I make use of it all the time, especially for testing these blog posts in a clean environment. libvirt provides a common interface around various underlying tools for virtual machine management. It not only offers features for guest management but for networking and storage management as well. It’s standard XML schema also makes for a powerful and versatile configuration format. On Linux, libvirt is typ...| JWillikers
The first time I have succeeded to start a Docker container my reaction was: “Ouawwww, incredibly simple and fast!”. However, before having this feeling I ha...| pellegrino.link
tl;dr| Josef Bacik’s Blog
tl;dr| Josef Bacik’s Blog
tl;dr| Josef Bacik’s Blog
tl;dr Learn how to use BPF/BCC/bpftrace, they will make your life so much easier. I dump all of my scripts I write here, they are mostly very raw, but good starting points for “how the hell do I do X”.| Josef Bacik’s Blog
tl;dr Fedora Workstation and all of its descendants are switching to btrfs by default, hooray! The core btrfs team is organizing more under Github. Development update. I’m going to attempt to be more communicative about what we as the btrfs community are up to development wise and priority wise.| Josef Bacik’s Blog
I have been busy working on a bunch of exciting tech last few years with very little time for anything else apart from family. The typical startup grind. However, better late than never, I found a …| The Pseudo Random Bit Bucket
Alpine Linux and lxd are perfect together, especially if combined with a good file system. Let’s see how to install them on a btrfs file system.| IT Notes
More about this in the article I wrote to accompany my talk at EuroBSDCon 2024.| IT Notes