5.14. Other Operating Systems

The Disk and Network Filesystems module supports several other operating systems in addition to Linux, using basically the same user interface. The main differences lie in the filesystem types supported by each operating system, and the type used for hard disk UNIX filesystems. Only Linux, Solaris, and Irix display a drop-down menu of available partitions when adding a hard disk filesystem—on other systems, you must enter the IDE or SCSI controller and drive numbers manually.

The operating systems on which the module can be used, and the major differences between each of them and Linux, are:

Sun Solaris Solaris uses ufs (called the Solaris UNIX Filesystem by Webmin) as its standard filesystem type for local hard disks. It has many of the same options as ext2 on Linux, but does not support group quotas, only user quotas. Adding virtual memory is also supported, in exactly the same way as on Linux.

The NFS filesystem type on Solaris is also similar to Linux, but supports mounting from multiple NFS servers in case one goes down. When entering servers into the Multiple NFS Servers field, they must be comma separated like host1:/path,host2:/path,host3:/path. Solaris systems can only mount Windows Networking Filesystems if the rumba program has been installed. They can only be mounted temporarily, however, not recorded for mounting at boot time.

One interesting filesystem type that only Solaris supports is the RAM Disk (tmpfs). Files in a filesystem of this type are not stored on disk anywhere, and so will be lost when the system is rebooted or the filesystem is unmounted. By default, Solaris uses tmpfs for the /tmp directory.

FreeBSD FreeBSD also uses ufs as its standard local hard disk filesystem type, although it is called the FreeBSD UNIX Filesystem by Webmin. It has most of the same options as Linux, and supports user and group quotas. Virtual memory is also supported on FreeBSD, but with the catch that once added it cannot be removed without rebooting. NFS is supported with similar options to Linux, but Windows networking filesystems are not.

OpenBSD OpenBSD uses the ffs filesystem type for local hard disk, which is called the OpenBSD UNIX Filesystem by Webmin. Like FreeBSD, it supports virtual memory and NFS, but not Windows networking filesystems.

HP/UX HP's UNIX variant uses hfs (HP UNIX Filesystem) as its standard local hard disk filesystem type, but also supports the superior, journaled vxfs, called HP Journaled UNIX Filesystem by Webmin. Both have an option for disk quotas, but for users only. Virtual memory is supported and can be added and removed at any time, but is always mounted at boot if permanently recorded. NFS is also available, with similar options to Linux, but there is no Windows networking filesystem type.

SGI Irix Newer versions of Irix use xfs (SGI Filesystem) as their standard hard disk filesystem type, which supports all the same options as xfs on Linux, including user quotas, ACLs, and file attributes. The efs (Old SGI Filesystem) type is also available, but should only be used if you have old partitions that are already formatted for it, or are running an old version of Irix. Irix supports NFS with similar options to Linux, but does not support Windows networking. AppleTalk and Netware filesystems can also be mounted using command-line tools, but they can not yet be mounted or edited from within Webmin.

The operating system also has standard virtual memory support, but with the peculiarity that the first swap partition on the first hard drive is always added as virtual memory automatically, using the special /dev/swap device file.

SCO UNIXWare UNIXWare has very similar filesystem support to Solaris, but also adds support for the hard disk based vxfs (Veritas Filesystem) type.

If your operating system is not on the list above, then it is not supported by the Disk and Network Filesystems module. In some cases, this is because the code has not yet been written, such as with AIX or Tru64/OSF1. MacOS X, on the other hand, mounts all hard disk partitions at boot time and automatically mounts network filesystems when requested by the user through the GUI. It therefore has no need for a Webmin module for managing filesystems.