Historically I''ve used hardware raid1 for the boot disks on my servers. With the availability of ZFS root, I want to explore making the two underlying drives directly available to the operating system and create a ZFS mirror to avail of error detection and self-healing. The current openSolaris installer, when given an entire disk, partitions it into two slices: s0 for the ZFS pool, and s1 for swap. Once the system is installed, I could add the second disk as a mirror, giving redundancy for the pool, but that would leave swap as a single point of failure. I investigated using a ZFS zvol for swap, which appears to be a viable option, but based on what I read you could not use a ZFS zvol for a dump device. The dumpadm man page under openSolaris says: "For systems with a ZFS root file system, dedicated ZFS volumes are used for swap and dump areas. For further information about setting up a dump area with ZFS, see the ZFS Administration Guide." However, the actual documentation ahttp://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-5461/gaypf?l=en'' says "Using a ZFS volume as a dump device is not supported." That is Solaris 10 documentation, though. Can openSolaris actually use a ZFS zvol for dump? A somewhat related question, I was trying to determine the best way to convert the default install into the disk layout I want. For ZFS root, is it required to have a partition and slices? Or can I just give it the whole disk and have it write an EFI label on it? I know you cannot remove disks currently from a pool, but you can swap out devices, correct? So can I swap in the second disk (either the whole disk, or the overlap partition of a legacy labeled disk) to replace the initial installation disk, and then attach the original disk again as the second half of the mirror (again either the entire disk, or the overlap slice)? -- Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768
Paul B. Henson wrote:> Historically I''ve used hardware raid1 for the boot disks on my servers. > With the availability of ZFS root, I want to explore making the two > underlying drives directly available to the operating system and create a > ZFS mirror to avail of error detection and self-healing. > > The current openSolaris installer, when given an entire disk, partitions > it into two slices: s0 for the ZFS pool, and s1 for swap. >This is because OpenSolaris 2008.05 is based on NV b86 which does not have the fix for 5008936 ZFS and/or zvol should support dumps 5070124 dumpadm -d /dev/... does not enforce block device requirement for savecore 6633197 zvol should not permit newfs or createpool while it''s in use by swap or dump which were integrated into NV b88 as part of ZFS boot support, http://opensolaris.org/os/community/on/flag-days/pages/2008041103 As they say, timing is everything... -- richard> Once the system is installed, I could add the second disk as a mirror, > giving redundancy for the pool, but that would leave swap as a single point > of failure. > > I investigated using a ZFS zvol for swap, which appears to be a viable > option, but based on what I read you could not use a ZFS zvol for a dump > device. > > The dumpadm man page under openSolaris says: > > "For systems with a ZFS root file system, dedicated ZFS volumes are used > for swap and dump areas. For further information about setting up a dump > area with ZFS, see the ZFS Administration Guide." > > However, the actual documentation > ahttp://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-5461/gaypf?l=en'' says "Using a ZFS > volume as a dump device is not supported." > > That is Solaris 10 documentation, though. Can openSolaris actually use a > ZFS zvol for dump? > > A somewhat related question, I was trying to determine the best way to > convert the default install into the disk layout I want. > > For ZFS root, is it required to have a partition and slices? Or can I just > give it the whole disk and have it write an EFI label on it? > > I know you cannot remove disks currently from a pool, but you can swap out > devices, correct? So can I swap in the second disk (either the whole disk, > or the overlap partition of a legacy labeled disk) to replace the initial > installation disk, and then attach the original disk again as the second > half of the mirror (again either the entire disk, or the overlap slice)? > > >
To do what you want requires at least Nevada build 88, or probably build 90 since the Nevada installer, unlike the one in OpenSolaris 2008.05, cannot currently install into a ZFS root pool. Support was added to the text-mode installer and JumpStart in build 90 for installing Solaris to a ZFS root pool. This is about 3 weeks from being released as a DVD and CD image. Also, you might be pleased to learn that in build 87 Solaris moved the root user''s home directory from the root of the filesystem (i.e. the / directory) to its own directory, namely /root . Cheers Andrew. This message posted from opensolaris.org
On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 07:29:31PM -0700, Paul B. Henson wrote:> For ZFS root, is it required to have a partition and slices? Or can I just > give it the whole disk and have it write an EFI label on it?Last I heard, no support yet for EFI boot. I''m not sure if that''s something that''s being actively worked on. -- Darren
IIRC, EFI boot requires support from the system BIOS. On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 1:54 AM, A Darren Dunham <ddunham at taos.com> wrote:> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 07:29:31PM -0700, Paul B. Henson wrote: > > For ZFS root, is it required to have a partition and slices? Or can I just > > give it the whole disk and have it write an EFI label on it? > > Last I heard, no support yet for EFI boot. I''m not sure if that''s > something that''s being actively worked on. > > -- > Darren > > > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss >-- Just me, Wire ... Blog: <prstat.blogspot.com>
Yes - EFI booting clearly does require support from the BIOS, since in this case the traditional PC BIOS is replaced by an EFI BIOS. Only Intel Macs use EFI rather than a traditional PC BIOS. (OK, so there are probably a few others out there, but not in any great numbers). You should still be able to boot ZFS on an Intel Mac using Boot Camp. Cheers Andrew. This message posted from opensolaris.org
On Fri, 16 May 2008, Richard Elling wrote:> This is because OpenSolaris 2008.05 is based on NV b86 which does not > have the fix for > > 5008936 ZFS and/or zvol should support dumps > 5070124 dumpadm -d /dev/... does not enforce block > device requirement for savecore > 6633197 zvol should not permit newfs or createpool while > it''s in use by swap or dumpSo ZFS dump is not supported in OpenSolaris 05/08. Any idea whether that will be resolved in an update to 05/08, or delayed until the release of 11/08? ZFS swap appears to documented as supported even in S10U5. However, in a couple of other responses to this I saw mention of bugs that cause a system to lock up when using ZFS swap? So the recommendation is to keep both dump and swap on legacy slices for now? -- Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768
On Sat, 17 May 2008, andrew wrote:> To do what you want requires at least Nevada build 88, or probably build > 90 since the Nevada installer, unlike the one in OpenSolaris 2008.05, > cannot currently install into a ZFS root pool. Support was added to the > text-mode installer and JumpStart in build 90 for installing Solaris to a > ZFS root pool. This is about 3 weeks from being released as a DVD and CD > image.Unfortunately, there is no support (as I understand) for Nevada builds. It will be interesting to see how quickly (if at all) these changes are back ported to OpenSolaris 2008.05.> Also, you might be pleased to learn that in build 87 Solaris moved the > root user''s home directory from the root of the filesystem (i.e. the / > directory) to its own directory, namely /root .Cool, that''s been one of my post-install cleanups for a while. -- Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768
Paul B. Henson wrote:> On Sat, 17 May 2008, andrew wrote: > > >> To do what you want requires at least Nevada build 88, or probably build >> 90 since the Nevada installer, unlike the one in OpenSolaris 2008.05, >> cannot currently install into a ZFS root pool. Support was added to the >> text-mode installer and JumpStart in build 90 for installing Solaris to a >> ZFS root pool. This is about 3 weeks from being released as a DVD and CD >> image. >> > > Unfortunately, there is no support (as I understand) for Nevada builds. It > will be interesting to see how quickly (if at all) these changes are back > ported to OpenSolaris 2008.05. >I believe the plan is to track the releases, though perhaps only in the repository. If so, then you can get the bits, but you''ll need a new installer (CD?) to actually install everything on a ZFS file system.>> Also, you might be pleased to learn that in build 87 Solaris moved the >> root user''s home directory from the root of the filesystem (i.e. the / >> directory) to its own directory, namely /root . >> > > Cool, that''s been one of my post-install cleanups for a while. > > >note that in OpenSolaris 2008.05, root is a role, so having a /root home directory is (sort of) a moot point. In any case, you can now check that box on the checklist and move on with your life :-) -- richard
On Mon, 19 May 2008, Richard Elling wrote:> I believe the plan is to track the releases, though perhaps only in the > repository. If so, then you can get the bits, but you''ll need a new > installer (CD?) to actually install everything on a ZFS file system.The initial openSolaris 05/08 install already supports ZFS root, so presumably as soon as the packages are available with the necessary bug fixes for ZFS swap/dump, it should be easy to migrate without reinstalling. -- Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768