Welcome to the OviOS Linux distribution website.

Click here for the docker image.

OviOS Linux is a specialized Linux distribution aimed at creating the fastest and easiest Linux unified storage server. It requires no knowledge of Linux, NFS, SMB or iSCSI protocols to create a fully functional storage server in less than 10 minutes, simply by following the 4 steps in the Admin Guide

News



Thu Sep 12 19:32:34 EDT 2019



It looks like the new kernel introduced a BUG that causes the boot process to hang for 2 minutes before continuing.

To fix install haveged:

Download here

Install with pacman:

$ pacman -U haveged-1.9.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz



At next reboot haveged will be started and the boot process will be fast.





OviOS Linux principles:

Customizable . OviOS is highly customizable, as new packages can be added easily by building from source. The OS functionality is customizable via the options tool.





Independent . OviOS Linux is not based on or derived from any other Linux Distro, and is fully compatible with the Linux Standard Base.





Simple . OviOS simplicity means no extra software, configurations and sophistications. OviOS uses the minimal amount of applications needed to allow it to function as a storage OS. The modifications to the software included are minimal and only distro-specific.





Lightweight . The Linux Kernel is stripped down of all drivers and modules not required for a server distro. Lightweight also means no GUI. A GUI just makes simple tasks simpler, and complex task impossible. A GUI would also require considerable amount of resources, which can be better used to serve data.

OviOS Linux is an enterprise level storage OS which combines open source technologies to provide an easy to use, performance oriented storage system. The goal is to keep OviOS Linux a pure storage appliance-like OS. It targets users and admins who need a stable out-of-the-box iSCSI, NFS, SMB server, and Linux and storage engineers who want to learn how to build a system from scratch.





Click

to visualize possible use cases.





The OviOS Linux iso image can also be used as a rescue image for ZFS on Linux systems.

After the system starts, disable the skip import option and start zfs-admin:





ovios-shell> options skip.import off

ovios-shell> options force.import on (This option is needed if the pool was previously imported by a system with a different hostid)

ovios-shell> zfs-admin start





See the OviOS Live guide to learn how to use OviOS without installing.





All packages have been built and tested in house. A list of installed packages can be found here





OviOS uses pacman as a package manager. However there is no relation between Arch Linux or any other Linux distro and OviOS Linux.

The system is provided with all needed packages for a stable storage server. Due to the way it's built, storage admins can add more packages, by building from source.





There are 2 ways this can be achieved:

1. Build using the general build method (./configure && make && make install)

2. Build using makepkg and a PKGBUILD. See and example here

or send a request for a specific package via email / contact form .