mhddfs automount failure and /home disconnection

Question

I have 2 drives connected to the server both are 500GB. drive 1 =/dev/sdc drive 2 =/dev/sdb

I've partitioned the second drive /dev/sdb in 2 partitions having /dev/sdb1 & /dev/sdb2

What I was looking for is to mount 2 drives on one directory which is /home.

So I did this mount function

mount -l /dev/sdb /mnt/sdb mount -l /dev/sdc1 /mnt/sdc1 mount -l /dev/sdc2 /backup

then mhddfs /mnt/sdb,/mnt/sdc1 /home -o allow_other

So 2 partitions are mounted to /home

And added this to /etc/ftab

/dev/sdb    /mnt/sdb    ext3    usrjquota=quota.user,jqfmt=vfsv0    1   1
/dev/sdc1   /mnt/sdc1   ext3    usrjquota=quota.user,jqfmt=vfsv0    1   1
/dev/sdc2   /backup ext4    usrjquota=quota.user,jqfmt=vfsv0    1   1
mhddfs#/mnt/sdb,/mnt/sdc1 /home fuse logfile=/var/log/mhddfs.log defaults,allow_other 0 0

My problem

first of all when reboot server the mhddfs is not automounted so I need to run the command manually through ssh "mhddfs /mnt/sdb,/mnt/sdc1 /home -o allow_other"

And sometimes when huge files are uploaded to /home directory it gets disconnected give this error message "`/home': Transport endpoint is not connected" so I have to umount and remount /home to resolve the problem.

Can you help me know what's wrong with my steps and what to do to resolve both problems.

Answer 1

I had the same issue. I wanted to extend my /home folder on my server by adding a second drive and chose to use mhddfs. I already had a whole harddrive entirely dedicated to my /home, the system being hosted on a separate drive - this has made things easier.

Here is how I proceeded, after my new harddisk was set up and formated:

• I created two new mount points: /mnt/home1 and /mnt/home2

• I edited /etc/fstab file to :

  1. change my older harddisk moint point from /home to /mnt/home1
  2. Set up my new harddisk mount point on /mnt/home2
  3. Told mhddfs to merge /mnt/home1 and /mnt/home2 into /home

Here is the result in my etc/fstab:

UUID=f29aa9e5-5988-4603-9ecd-5c24dd804d94 /mnt/home1 ext4 defaults 0 2

UUID=e535c3fc-0842-4557-be85-55277912a058 /mnt/home2 ext4 defaults 0 2

mhddfs#/mnt/home1,/mnt/home2 /home fuse defaults,allow_other 0 0

Of course, you have to follow all these steps without restarting the machine (otherwise you will have no more /home directory).

It works pretty well. My older harddrive is now almost 100% full and my system began to write on the newer one, but practicaly speaking you don't even notice it. Everthing you see is a "normal" /home folder and mhddfs coordinates this in a totally transparent way.

I have tried with forcing fsck disk check on startup to make sure everything was ok - I set up the last parameter for mhddfs on /etc/fstab to "0" to make sure fsck does not create problem. Everything runs well, it seems pretty stable.