i like to backup my linux based NAS (small files like picutres) to an attached USB Disk with FAT32.
For this i like to use rsync.

I know, that this will not work correct per default. rsync will sync the files again and again.
I found this question and answers: How can I use rsync with a FAT file system?

But, even if I use the --modify-window=1 and --size-only option, all files are processed again. The log looks like, rsync tries to set permission/ownership on fat32, which will fail.
rsync: chown "<filename>" failed: Operation not permitted (1)

Question is: is there a way to disable the “chown” command?

//Edit:

currently I use the following command: rsync -a --modify-window=1 --size-only /data/ /mnt/backup/. &

Just don’t use the options for syncing owner/group. If you are using the --archive/-a option this includes those two, so instead specify the flags individually and leave those out. Check the man page for a list of what --archive implies.

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This is what I tried but it doesn’t work :

1. Connect with SSH
2. # /etc/init.d/usbarbitrator stop

3. # fdisk -l |grep Disk

   Disk /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba40:C0:T0:L0: 4022 MB, 4022337024 bytes

4. # ls /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba40:C0:T0:L0*

   /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba40:C0:T0:L0
   /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba40:C0:T0:L0:4

5. # mkdir /mnt/usb

6. # mount /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba40:C0:T0:L0 /mnt/usb

   mount: mounting /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba40:C0:T0:L0 on /mnt/usb failed: No such file or directory

7. Also tried with /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba40:C0:T0:L0:4, with /mnt/usb/, always the same error message.

8. Then I checked # ls -l /vmfs/volumes, but it wasn’t there either

The version of ESXi is 4.1…
USB Key is FAT32 as far as I know.

Any help or advice would be appreciated !

Looking at this VMware KB article it looks like it should be a FAT 16 formatted USB drive

The USB key or disk device media is formatted with a FAT16 partition
and is of maximum size 2GB

Update:
Looking at this blog post the drive would need to be FAT16, Which would make sense to me as VMware made ESXi as small footprint they can which would mean not including unneeded things in the kernel such as file system drivers.

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I have a ups connected to a Linux server with a usb cable, i installed apcupsd demon and i was wondering how to instruct it to run a shell script i created when a special condition occurs?
i.e. the battery is 25% percent or the time left is 10 minutes so this condition can run the script?

Solved by creating a custom shell script and place it under /ect/apcupsd with the exact name of doshutdown which is triggered when a configured condition is met (either the remaining time of the battery or the remaining percentage – both based on the ups calculations) , the script contains my desired actions and if it ends with exit 0 so the shut down sequence will continue by the apcups demon after the script finishes and make the script ends with exit 99 to makes the shell script actions the only responder when the configured conditions met.

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We have a kiosk that uses a bio scanner from m2sys (usb device). It scans your palm to recognize you. Every so often, maybe 1-3 times a day, the bio scanner will become an unknown device. We are unable to see any patterns or commonalities. When we unplug and plug it back in, it becomes available again.

We have custom software that uses the bio scanner’s software to communicate with it. We’ve added a crap load of logging on everything but there doesn’t seem to be any pattern of when the thing shuts off. We have these devices deployed to multiple locations (100+) and they are all seeing the issues but we can not reproduce it here, at the main office.

I’ve evaluated the software and I don’t see anything. I’m thinking it’s a driver or hardware issue (but we can’t reproduce the issues here in the main office) or maybe environmental interference of some sort like from scan guns, automatic doors, microwaves or something else.

Any ideas would be welcome. I’m looking for possible causes of the usb device becoming unknown or ways to figure out what the cause is.

• no other usb devices have this issue, only the scanner
• We’ve contacted the manufacturer and they blame our software
• We’re getting help from Microsoft, but they haven’t found anything
• OS is embedded XP
• http://www.m2sys.com/palm-vein-reader.htm

This is almost always a hardware problem. If Windows finds the device ID, it will search a table of known drivers for device IDs supported, and bind the driver to the device. However, broken devices often fail to identify correctly.

It is possible that the device momentarily lost power and came up improperly, or that it is not receiving sufficient power (which can make the logic in it unstable and error-prone).

Try a different USB port and also try connecting it through a hub.

It may also be a driver bug (unlikely), or a hardware bug, or a USB hub issue (unlikely). Personally, I would press further on the device manufacturer.

Also verify what the device ID is in the properties panel when it is an unknown device. If it is right, you have a driver or OS issue. If it is wrong or unknown, it’s almost certainly a hardware issue.

If you can’t replicate the issue, I’d strongly suspect power issues. The USB hub would solve this, as it has a power insert.

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I set up a little NAS system for my personal use. It’s an Ubuntu system running on a fan-less Atom-powered mini ATX mainboard which I extended with a usb3 pci card to get best possible performance for the whole system. There are 2 USB3 external drives which I write to using Gigabit ethernet.

I get ~12 Mb/s writing to the NAS and roughly 75 when reading. (I’m good with that reading rate.)

The Ubuntu is running on a usb pendrive and is rather slow in terms of write operations, but writing to the pendrive should not be involved in the process – right?

I set up a web server on my computer and used wget to pull a large file into /dev/null. I copied with 70Mb/s and more which is good. Writing to the usb mount instead gives me the ~13 Mb/s I already saw from the smb transfer.

When I connect the external drives directly to my computer I get insane writing speeds.
Could you guys give me a hint as to how to find the bottleneck?

This was totally a filesystem issue.
The Linux ntfs-3g driver is just to slow to perform at reasonable speed.
Bot HDDs are now formatted with EXT4 and the speed increased to more than 70mb / S.

I wanted ntfs to be able to quickly connect the drives to my Windows PC which now needs a plugin to handle the EXT4 Drives.

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I want a bash script to monitor USB ports of a linux server to detect when an external hard drive is plugged in and removed.

When a USB external drive is plugged in or removed, a text file is generated in some temp file about usb drive specs and time.

You probably already have udev running on your system, and it is monitoring connect/disconnect events. With the proper configuration it can trigger scripts to run, but it is primarily designed to create the device nodes.

On a Debian/Ubuntu system take a look at the existing rules in /lib/udev/rules.d, and /etc/udev/rules.d`. See the Run section of the udev man page, for details about executing a task.

See:

• http://linux.die.net/man/8/udev
• http://linux.die.net/man/8/udevadm

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I have to design a program to monitor USB ports of a linux server to detect when an external hard drive is plugged in and removed.

Now I have one confusion in my mind about it. I have my own VPS. so if i design a program then how can i check it without physically plugging external drive as i’m working on vps. does it mean that there is no other way except that I install OS on my own computer at home and then plugin hard drive myself and check it?

actually I have to develop this program for 3 different OS thats why I’m asking.

If I were you I would check it on a physical machine.

It’s not a high cost and you will be assured that it actually works properly.

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We’ve got a stack of SCSI HDDs from a very old server that recently bit the dust. There’s some chance that there is salvageable and valuable data on the drives. Are there USB enclosures akin to the SATA and IDE enclosures that are so common today that accept SCSI drives? If such a device isn’t available, what would be the best strategy for recovering the data from these drives?

Such cables do exist, though I don’t know of any enclosures.

The problem with server SCSI hard-drives is that nearly all of the time they were attached to a RAID card, and that makes them not universally mountable without the family of RAID card they were originally attached to. If they’re old enough, finding the right hardware to get at the data can be quite hard (it’s useful to keep a dinosaur or two in the parts closet for just this reason). And if you don’t have the full disk-set you can be very much out of luck.

Really old SCSI drives were attaching to old, crotchety RAID cards that didn’t have much in the way of forwards or backwards compatibility, so you may need the exact model of card they attached to. It really depends on what that old RAID card was, though.

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I ave already gone through http://serverfault.com/questions/12833/how-to-prevent-windows-from-safely-removing-hardware and it has a registry based solution for WinXP, however what I am after is:
1. a GPO based solution
2. windows 7, 2003 and 2008 as well

thanks

UPD: tried

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesMYDEVICE] 
"DisableRemovable"=dword:00000001 

doesn’t work for me

Tried removing though GPO and other ways, apparently the driver itself simply blovks anything the registry sets. Spoken to the driver developer, and he’s going to apply some changes. So there was no actual solution for my case.

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It seems there are plenty of PS/2 to USB converters but want we need is a composite USB input and 2x PS/2 outputs (keyboard and mouse).
An example application: a server without USB ports but 2x PS/2 ports. KVM cable is a VGA and composite USB (i.e. single USB cable for keyboard/mouse).
Does such product even exist?

The thing to watch for is that a lot of devices are designed to be ‘converted’ so those USB -> PS/2 converters which come with a lot of mice nowadays are actually dumb pin converters with the actual conversion being performed by the mouse itself. In other words, they’re not converters as such and won’t work with just any device.

I’m afraid I’ve not seen the style of device you’re after, though – it’d require some decent electronics.

For example, this here:

http://www.ebuyer.com/124082-startech-usb-to-ps-2-keyboard-adapter-plug-usb-keyboard-into-ps-2-port-gc46fmkey

Would rely on the keyboard switching to ‘PS/2′ mode.

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