Puzzled about the .system dataset

[bernieTB]

Hi all,

I've done a fair bit of searching but can't really find much details about the '.system' dataset.

In the GUI, under 'System' - 'System Dataset' I have added an SSD pool and checked both 'Syslog' and 'Reporting Database'.

However, when I go to the pool, I cannot find a ".system" directory... And when I go to 'var/log', I see all logs are still stored there...

Am I missing something?

Thanks,
Bernie

 

[pirateghost]

Sounds normal to me. What are you looking for?

 

[bernieTB]

Let me elaborate a bit, was indeed not clearly stating my intentions

If I understood this correctly, the .system dataset, by default is on the boot device (which is a USB stick in my case). I'm worried that, over time, this stick may fill up with logs and at some point cause issues.
So, by relocating the system dataset to the SSD pool (where I have 256 Gb of space), I don't need to worry too much, at least not in the short term.

But, if I don't see the .system directory on the SSD pool, how can I be sure that the logs are being written to it? and the config change I did in the GUI (under System Dataset) has taken place?

 

[pirateghost]

How are you checking this?

Are you SSH or using console to verify the directories exist? A share won't show these directories or files by default

 

[bernieTB]

ssh - here's the result of an ll:

Code:

[root@DataStore] /mnt/SSD_data# ll
total 39
drwxr-xr-x   7 root    wheel     7 Mar 16 11:06 ./
drwxr-xr-x  10 root    wheel   360 Mar 16 12:30 ../
drwxr-xr-x   2 root    wheel     9 Mar 16 10:59 .AppleDB/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root    wheel     2 Mar  4 20:17 OwnCloud/
drwxr-xr-x   2 webdav  webdav    2 Mar  5 14:07 WebUpload/
drwxr-xr-x  11 root    wheel    11 Mar 12 19:52 jails/
drwxr-xr-x   5 root    shareB   58 Mar 16 12:00 logs/

The logs directory is one I created myself and I currently run a CRON task to Rsync the var/logs data...

Thanks

 

[pirateghost]

Type 'mount | grep system'

 

[bernieTB]

That's interesting - it seems it's there alright... just weird it won't show when doing an ll:

Code:

[root@DataStore] /mnt/SSD_data/.AppleDB# mount | grep system
SSD_data/.system on /var/db/system (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)
SSD_data/.system/cores on /var/db/system/cores (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)
SSD_data/.system/samba4 on /var/db/system/samba4 (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)
SSD_data/.system/syslog-0dc2ca1e7fa9464d8c4d7c4fd81f6855 on /var/db/system/syslog-0dc2ca1e7fa9464d8c4d7c4fd81f6855 (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)
SSD_data/.system/rrd-0dc2ca1e7fa9464d8c4d7c4fd81f6855 on /var/db/system/rrd-0dc2ca1e7fa9464d8c4d7c4fd81f6855 (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)
SSD_data/.system/configs-0dc2ca1e7fa9464d8c4d7c4fd81f6855 on /var/db/system/configs-0dc2ca1e7fa9464d8c4d7c4fd81f6855 (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)

 

[cyberjock]

It isn't showing on an ll because we don't mount it in the zpool. We used to, but people were trying to change all the permissions for all of their zpool files, and doing things like "chmod 777 /mnt/tank/*" and that totally trashed all the logs, configs, etc in the .system dataset. Next thing people couldn't start any services, and were confused as to what was wrong.

The fix was to destroy the .system dataset and reboot, which was often beyond what many people can do from the CLI. So to protect newbies from stabbing themselves in the face, we hide the .system dataset from existing on the zpools themselves. :)

This is totally normal. At the end of the day, since your mount command shows that the .system dataset located on the zpool SSD_data is mounted under /var/db/system you can be assured that everything *is* how you want it to be and all of this "weird" behavior actually is proper. :)

 

[bernieTB]

Thanks Pirateghost and Cyberjock for helping me understand - much appreciated you taking the time!

And, I think it was a wise decision to hide it from newbies like me :D

But now I at least know it's in the right place and I can browse the logs through the /var/logs (or in the logs directory I'm syncing to - which is easier to access through the share I have on it)...