Creating project hangs when project directory is on a network share

[ccgauvin94]

I have an SMB mounted share with options sfu and mfsymlinks enabled for the share. It is mounted as the user running scipion3 and that user has r/w permissions that are verified working. However, if I try to create a Scipion project through the GUI on the mounted share, it simply hangs and there's no terminal output, whereas if I try to make a project on local storage, it seems to work just fine.

[pconesa]

Hi! network mounted FS are far not ideal for sqlite (storage that scipion uses). In general, although slow, GPFS and NTFS is reported to work, this is the first time I know anyone trying smb.

Probably is not an option, please read:
https://www.sqlite.org/draft/useovernet.html

We are currently exploring enabling server based storage like postgres, mySQL others.....but we are far from having something working.

I do not think we can do much about this, unless there is a way to make it work.

If you want /need to explore this option, i'd:

1.- make test just reading a writing sqlite on the smb out of scipion
2.- increase the stress on the database
3- If all goes well, let us know, maybe there is something on our side we can do. I know doubt it.

[ccgauvin94]

Thanks for the quick response.

Is it possible to keep the sqlite database locally, but large files (particle stacks, micrographs) on the network share? Seems like it might be the path of least resistance

[pconesa]

I'm afraid we've never thought about this, and sometimes there is a workaround, but I do not see any.

Probably the easiest fix would be to extend the HD of the machine (not sure how easy this is in your case)

[pconesa]

If this is to be run in streaming mode during acquisition... we have a different setup, and in this case we use SMB.

The fstab line is this one:
/192.168.10.2/OffloadData /home/scipionuser/OffloadData cifs credentials=/home/scipionuser/.smbcredentials,vers=3.0,uid=2000,gid=2000,rw 0 0

Basically, on our processing machine we mount "OffloadData" (readonly mode), exposing the acquisition images (movies)

The simplified schema is this.

Note there is a 10GB connection among both machines.