How do I use mergerfs on LibreELEC?

fRzzy · October 21, 2017 at 7:31 PM

I have 4x6TB HDDs in an external box connected to my LibreELEC box with USB 3 cable. I don't want to rely on the box firmware to manage the HDDs so I config them as seperate disks which LibreELEC see 4 HDDs.

Problem is one of them is almost full and the others have prenty of space left.

Is there any way I could install mergerfs so I can pool all my HDDs together and not to worry about manually balancing them?

subzero79 · October 22, 2017 at 1:14 AM

You can try download the Mergerfs release Debian package for armhf and extract the binary mergerfs. Copy it to libreelec manually and run the configuration of your union mountpoint. If it works you can automate it at boot with systemd or autostart.sh

There is no need of kernel module as fuse comes already installed.

subzero79 · October 22, 2017 at 1:15 AM

sorry I don’t why I though you had an arm platform. You should try according to your arch. I did a quick test in arm and it worked.

fRzzy · October 22, 2017 at 9:21 PM

I'm on amd64 but your advice is well received, gonna try it out. Thanks a lot.

subzero79 · October 22, 2017 at 11:23 PM

I test and the help menu got displayed and the ldd didn't report any missing shared libraries. Don't have drives to test a full setup.

IMO the binary could be included in libreelec by default, there should also be an addon for this.

**chewitt** · October 23, 2017 at 5:59 AM Official Post

There is no plan or desire to bloat our images with niche-use filesystem tools. We are a simple client OS distro, not a NAS. If the binaries do not have kernel driver dependencies we would entertain a user-contributed add-on. If there are driver dependencies you're best off creating your own custom LE image. If a few others want the same you are welcome to share LE images from these forums as long as sources/changes are pushed back to your own github repo to maintain GPLv2 compliance.

fRzzy · October 24, 2017 at 3:09 PM

I have copy mergerfs debian amd64 binary to system-tools addon bin/ folder, and mounting manually works.

However I can't get it to mount at boot by systemd, this is systemctl status output:

Code

● storage-pool.mount - Mount mergerfs volume
   Loaded: loaded (/storage/.config/system.d/storage-pool.mount; disabled; vendo
r preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2017-10-24 14:07:20 UTC; 3s ago
    Where: /storage/pool
     What: /var/media/RED*
  Process: 3569 ExecMount=/usr/bin/mount /var/media/RED* /storage/pool -t merger
fs -o defaults,allow_other,direct_io,use_ino (code=exited, status=255)
      CPU: 2ms

Oct 24 14:07:20 LibreELEC systemd[1]: Mounting Mount mergerfs volume...
Oct 24 14:07:20 LibreELEC systemd[1]: storage-pool.mount: Mount process exited, 
code=exited status=255
Oct 24 14:07:20 LibreELEC systemd[1]: Failed to mount Mount mergerfs volume.
Oct 24 14:07:20 LibreELEC systemd[1]: storage-pool.mount: Unit entered failed st
ate.

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If I ran the ExecMount command it mounts correctly, but calling systemctl start storage-pool.mount always failed with the same error.

subzero79 · October 24, 2017 at 9:36 PM

I am not exactly sure at what point /storage is mounted, so since the binary is residing there try to add a dependency to that path so that mergerfs point is mounted after storage is available.

subzero79 · October 24, 2017 at 9:55 PM

sorry that’s wrong. Otherwise other mounts wouldn’t work.

Maybe try to add a symlink from mount.mergerfs -> mergerfs

fRzzy · October 25, 2017 at 3:24 AM

mount.mergerfs is a symlink of mergerfs

I ran this command:

Code

usr/bin/mount /var/media/RED\* /storage/pool -t mergerfs -o defaults,allow_other,direct_io,use_ino

it mounted fine, but somehow systemctl start storage-pool.mount failed while exec the same exact command (without the escaping asterisk of course)

**nickr** · October 25, 2017 at 5:42 AM Official Post

Not probably the purely "right" answer, but try putting your mount command in .config/autostart.sh

**nickr** · October 25, 2017 at 5:50 AM Official Post

PS your system.d file may also be helpful.

subzero79 · October 25, 2017 at 2:34 PM

I am guessing that the systemd execmount doesn't have the system-tools path. I've tried a script with a service unit file but didn't work (don't know why).

Your best shot right now would be as nickr says and use autostart.sh

fRzzy · October 25, 2017 at 4:04 PM

this is the systemd unit file

Code

LibreELEC:~ # cat /storage/.config/system.d/storage-pool.mount 
[Unit]
Description = Mount mergerfs volume

[Mount]
What = /var/media/RED*
Where = /storage/pool
Type = mergerfs
Options = defaults,allow_other,direct_io,use_ino

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

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subzero79 · October 26, 2017 at 10:37 AM

Is definitely something with PATH where systemd looks for the mount binary. I just tested by unsquashing SYSTEM and and re-packing it with the binary and the symlink. Now the mount unit works.

fRzzy · October 27, 2017 at 10:04 AM

Sorry but it's a bit mixed up here, what do you mean by systemd not finding the mount binary? do you mean mergerfs binary?

subzero79 · October 28, 2017 at 1:51 AM

Quote from fRzzy

do you mean mergerfs binary?

Yes, when using systemd mount unit.

rraymond · February 7, 2024 at 11:13 AM

I want to use mergerfs on my LibreElec box. What I have found is a docker image https://hotio.dev/containers/mergerfs/. This does not support armv7. However using docker addon and a simple dockerfile derived from hotio it's simple to use docker approach documented by them

Docker

FROM alpine:latest

ENTRYPOINT ["mergerfs", "-f"]

RUN apk add --no-cache fuse

ARG VERSION
ADD "https://github.com/trapexit/mergerfs/releases/download/2.39.0/mergerfs-static-linux_armhf.tar.gz" "/tmp"
RUN tar xzf "/tmp/mergerfs-static-linux_armhf.tar.gz" -C "/" && \
    rm -rf "/tmp/mergerfs-static-linux_armhf.tar.gz"