RHEL-based Veeam Hardened Repo on Sentinel DS5100?

Legacy Products WD Sentinel
1

TL;DR: How to install RHEL on WD Sentinel DS5100 for test purposes?

I’m running Veeam Backup and Replication 12 on two HP Microserver Gen10 boxes, one as the server and primary repo, and one as a remote repo. Both are currently running Win10/64. Both boot from SSDs in the optical drive bay and have 4 spinning HDDs in a “mirrored” Storage Space.

I am considering turning the remote repo into a Veeam Hardened Repository, which can now be deployed via an ISO, but I want to test this on a throwaway box, first.

This would be a great application for my decommissioned Western Digital DS5100, since it also boots from an SSD and has 4 spinning HDDs.

First I tried following Veeam’s Building an Immutable Veeam Repository guide, based on Ubuntu 24, and I generally got that working most of the way, e.g. I got Ubuntu installed and the Veeam components pushed out to it, so that it showed up as a managed server and repository in my Veeam console.

But then I realized the Veeam recently released the REHL-based Veeam Hardened Repository ISO, which does most of the work for me, and, more importantly, becomes a supported product once installed on compatible hardware. My Microserver Gen10 boxes appears on the RHEL compatibility list, but my WD box does not. But I want to try anyway, since this is just a trial before moving onto supported hardware.

I Rufused the ISO onto a USB stick and booted the DS5100 into the Installer:

image
image659×411 51.9 KB

but when I continue it errors out at:

image
image1024×768 55.6 KB

I have deleted all the partitions on the drives:

sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for veeamadmin: 
Disk /dev/sda: 28.9 GiB, 31029460992 bytes, 60604416 sectors
Disk model: DataTraveler 3.0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x32712a62

Device     Boot Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *     2048 60604383 60602336 28.9G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)


Disk /dev/sdc: 3.64 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD40EFAX-68J
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 07895639-5A0B-11EC-814E-0090A93D7CDE


Disk /dev/sdb: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 850 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: E9468696-1278-449D-8F0F-E4C4948382C3

Device       Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1     2048   2203647   2201600     1G EFI System
/dev/sdb2  2203648   6397951   4194304     2G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb3  6397952 976771071 970373120 462.7G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sde: 7.28 TiB, 8001563222016 bytes, 15628053168 sectors
Disk model: ST8000DM004-2CX1
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: DE30F7AB-E598-11EB-8141-0090A93D7CDE


Disk /dev/sdf: 7.28 TiB, 8001563222016 bytes, 15628053168 sectors
Disk model: ST8000DM004-2CX1
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes


Disk /dev/sdd: 3.64 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD40EFAX-68J
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: FFAD58BD-586A-11EC-814D-0090A93D7CDE


Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv: 100 GiB, 107374182400 bytes, 209715200 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

So I definitely have enough free space.

Has anyone successfully installed RHEL onto a DS5100? Can anyone help parse this error?

Thanks!

2

I cannot quite follow what hard drives you have it looks like you have one SSD in then maybe four drive different sizes?
in any event my guess is it says you need two devices and it only sees the one SSD so I think you need to either take out that this SSD or add another one on the other side

I think somehow the original ds5100 had a broken raid for the small drive built in

you are only able to configure the raid on the four drive bays

3

Yes, I have one SSD that I intend to use as my boot drive, plus 4 spinners. It was purchased with WS 2012 Essentials on the SSD, and then I installed 4 drives in a Storage Space. When I decommissioned the unit last week I removed the 4 spinners from the SS, deleted the SS, then over-wrote the Windows installation with Ubuntu, and then formatted one of the spinners as XFS.

When I tried running the RHEL installer, it threw the error about the lack of sufficient drives, so I booted back into Ubuntu (since the RHEL installer hadn’t overwritten it yet), and deleted all the partitions as noted above.

If I boot into the RHEL installer and open a command line before clicking Install, and run ls, I get:

image
image1200×572 32.6 KB

So it appears to see some sort of set of disk-like devices, because it can see that 3 of them have GPT partitions, and one of them (the SSD) has an Ubuntu install.

4

again, i have no clue what you are doing. But your error posted is not, not enough space, it says enough devices. I think you need to plug anything a ssd or as you call them a spinner on the other side of the box.
not that hard to do just for giggles :slight_smile:
or try it without the ssd, but I think the box will try to boot off of the first raid channel