I am building a system on a small x86 system by using Solaris 10 10/09. The system disk is 1TB. As Solaris only take 6GB, I plan to allocate the rest to a zpool for data. I want to keep system and data as separated as possible, therefore I tried a. Create a 10G Solaris partition for install system. Then after installation finish, I created second Solaris partition and then zpool for data. This disk layout works fine until the time when I tried to re-install Solaris. The installation program seems always assume there will be only one Solaris partition on a single disk. The new system won''t boot although installation finish successfully. I guess the installer gets confused by the disk layout b. Create a 10G Solaris partition for system and an "other" type partition of 990G for data. The zpool is created on block device c0d0p2 by using zpool create pdata c0d0p2 c0d0p1 is the Solaris partition has the system. So far the zpool on top of a fdisk partition seems working fine. But I don''t think this is usual/normal way to setup up a zpool, therefore I am not sure whether there are potential problem/risk. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
Hua wrote:> I am building a system on a small x86 system by using Solaris 10 10/09. The system disk is 1TB. As Solaris only take 6GB, I plan to allocate the rest to a zpool for data. I want to keep system and data as separated as possible, therefore I tried > > a. Create a 10G Solaris partition for install system. Then after installation finish, I created second Solaris partition and then zpool for data. This disk layout works fine until the time when I tried to re-install Solaris. The installation program seems always assume there will be only one Solaris partition on a single disk. The new system won''t boot although installation finish successfully. I guess the installer gets confused by the disk layout > > b. Create a 10G Solaris partition for system and an "other" type partition of 990G for data. The zpool is created on block device c0d0p2 by using > > zpool create pdata c0d0p2 > > c0d0p1 is the Solaris partition has the system. So far the zpool on top of a fdisk partition seems working fine. But I don''t think this is usual/normal way to setup up a zpool, therefore I am not sure whether there are potential problem/risk. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks >It should work fine. Historically, FDISK partitioning didn''t allow for more than one primary partition of the same type, which is why you need to make the other partition something different. As long as you create it as partition type which isn''t going to get misinterpreted as something else, ZFS doesn''t care. -- Andrew
>>>>> "h" == Hua <hua_qiu at hotmail.com> writes:h> b. Create a 10G Solaris partition for system and an "other" h> type partition of 990G for data. h> So far the zpool on top of a fdisk partition seems working h> fine. But I don''t think this is usual/normal way yeah fmthard/prtvtoc/format/fdisk are retarded and need to DIAF. but the ``normal'''' way is probably to make one solaris partition covering the whole disk, then make slices within that partition. use s0 for rpool, and make it 32 - 64GB to leave room for liveupgrade because 10GB is too small. Leave s2 alone. Use s6 for the 990GB data pool. i am not sure if the ``normal'''' way has a concrete advantage over your way or not. it might be equivalent, just more normal. one thing I often do is: 1. bang on a set of identical disks so they have the same kind of label (there are three kind sof label: SMI/MBR, SMI/sparc, or EFI/GPT). this needs fdisk''ing, fdisk -e''ing, NOINUSE_CHECK=1 format -e''ing, writing fake labels then rewriting, to get past all the ridiculous cargo cult pedantry they have bolted onto these tools to avoid ``call generators'''' or just to piss you off. 2. get one disk so it has the label I want, somehow 3. copy the label to the other disks: fmthard -n asdfasdf -i /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?s2 > t0 <-- source disk fmthard -s t0 /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?s2 <-- target disk if you try to be creative rather than do a straight copy, fmthard will often say ``bad data on one of the lines'''' but it does not tell you which line, so you have to edit t0 deleting lines one by one until you find the one it doesn''t like, then play with that line until fmthard takes it. The rules are arbitrary and undocumented, but at least it doesn''t take long to test your guesses. This often happens to me when trying to copy from SMI source to EFI/GPT target because the rules for partition type number are different between the two labels. In general, the error messages for all these tools are completely bogus fantasies. For example format will tell you the disk is ``in use'''' when it really means ``doesn''t have any MBR label on it yet''''. Just pretend it''s windows and distrust everything. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 304 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20091120/2ddc5fbc/attachment.bin>
Hi, I read the other posts in this thread, they look fine. But still, I thing you have bad concept. Generally, it is a good idea to separate root pool from data, but as I understand, you have only one physical disk. I would install Solaris using ZFS as the root filesystem on the whole disk and after installation I would probably create another ZFS for data. Finaly I would tune ZFS quotas to achieve best storrage optimization for your needs. Then you can e.g. forget the liveupgrade storage problems. Btw., I read somewhere that one should build ZFS on top of whole disk rather then partitions. This is my opinion. Best, Jozef Hamar _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `-'' `- I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. Hua wrote: I am building a system on a small x86 system by using Solaris 10 10/09. The system disk is 1TB. As Solaris only take 6GB, I plan to allocate the rest to a zpool for data. I want to keep system and data as separated as possible, therefore I tried a. Create a 10G Solaris partition for install system. Then after installation finish, I created second Solaris partition and then zpool for data. This disk layout works fine until the time when I tried to re-install Solaris. The installation program seems always assume there will be only one Solaris partition on a single disk. The new system won''t boot although installation finish successfully. I guess the installer gets confused by the disk layout b. Create a 10G Solaris partition for system and an "other" type partition of 990G for data. The zpool is created on block device c0d0p2 by using zpool create pdata c0d0p2 c0d0p1 is the Solaris partition has the system. So far the zpool on top of a fdisk partition seems working fine. But I don''t think this is usual/normal way to setup up a zpool, therefore I am not sure whether there are potential problem/risk. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss