A storage OS is an operating system for servers that is designed and built around data availability, high-performance and stability.

Depending on it’s features, it will include storage protocols such as NFS, SMB, iSCSI and FC. OviOS Linux uses iSCSI, NFS and SMB by default. FC and FCoE can be manually configured, by adding the necessary drivers and modules.

Usually storage OSs aren’t concerned with graphics and audio drivers or others not needed for it’s purpose. OviOS does not include any of those.

OviOS is a highly performant storage OS which can be used to provide storage to different clients via iSCSI, NFS, SMB and FTP.

OviOS is not suitable for desktops, laptops, media servers. It doesn’t provide online repositories, however packages can be upgraded manually non-disruptively.

A Logical Unit Number is a number that identifies a block device created on the storage system.

Using SCSI commands via TCP/IP networks, clients can connect to OviOS LUNs and use them as regular disks. OviOS LUNs can be thin or thick provisioned.

When the admin creates a thin LUN, the size assigned to the new LUN is not reserved in the storage pool, as opposed to thick LUNs which reserve the space in the pool when created.

With thin LUNs, when the usage on the LUNs at client level changes due to data being deleted, the storage system can reflect this change if the client initiates UNMAP commands to tell the storage OS about the change. This way the admin can over provision the storage pool, but there must be measures taken to ensure there is always enough space on the pool.

Although the OviOS commands have implemented thin and thick provisioning, the functionality is not yet implemented at filesystem level. ZFS on Linux doesn’t provide yet UNMAP support. LUNs can still be created and used as thin, but the OS will not know when data is deleted inside the LUN.

OviOS recommends to create only thick LUNs until UNMAP will be supported.

In OviOS Linux an iSCSI target is a controller located on the iSCSI server. The target can be accessed by iSCSI initiators to access the LUNs. In OviOS you can create multiple targets, control which initiators can access them, map multiple LUNs to each target.

In OviOS Linux a volume is a filesystem that acts as a directory in the storage pool. The volume can be shared to Windows clients as a Network Drive via the SMB protocol, or to Linux and UNIX clients as an NFS share.

When creating a volume, the admin can assign a volume size, which reserves the space on the pool.

NFS (Network File System) and SMB (Server Message Block) are protocols used to share storage volumes to different clients. NFS is used with UNIX like systems, while SMB is used with Windows clients. OviOS has support for both protocols by default.

Yes. OviOS supports Active Directory authentication for SMB clients, by joining the system to a windows Domain Controller. OviOS shell provides a tool for this purpose, called smbovios

OviOS also supports NIS authentication, by using the NIS client feature.

OviOS supports copy-in-time snapshots for volumes, LUNs and pools. A snapshot can be taken manually at any time or scheduled, without any impact on data access or performance.

One can restore volumes , LUNs or entire pools from snapshots.

The admin can also use the replication feature and replicate pools, volumes or LUNs to a secondary OviOS storage system, for disaster recovery scenarios.

OviOS has been tested and supports the following client operating systems:

10.1. With iSCSI: ESXi 4.x, 5.x and 6.x ; Windows 2007, 8, 2008, 2012 ; Linux ; the BSD family ; Solaris 11 and the Illumos Family.

10.2. With NFS: ESXi 4.x, 5.x and 6.x ; Linux ; the BSD family ; Solaris 11 and the Illumos Family, Windows NFS client

10.3. With SMB v1, v2 and v3: Windows 2007, 8, 2008, 2012, Windows 10 ; Linux ; Chrome OS.