Re: [CFT] Patch to bsdinstall to support root-on-ZFS and GELI

From: Allan Jude <freebsd_at_allanjude.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 19:13:21 -0400
On 2013-10-08 16:17, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
> On 10/07/13 21:59, Allan Jude wrote:
>> Devin Teske and I have been working on a big patch to bsdinstall to
>> implement installing on a ZFS pool. It supports both GPT and MBR, the 4k
>> sector gnop trick, and optional GELI encryption. We would like to commit
>> this in time for 10.0-BETA1 so it needs some testing to work out any
>> obvious bugs before we send it off to re_at_ to get it committed.
>>
>> It includes a single configuration menu that allows you to select all of
>> the required details, including which drives to use (gets details from
>> camcontrol, also includes an inspection utility that presents the
>> detailed output of camcontrol inquiry/identify, and gpart show), what
>> ZFS RAID level to use (taking in to consideration the selected number of
>> drives), GPT/mbr, 4k YES/no, GELI yes/NO, pool name, etc.
>>
>>
>> Additional, it includes some other changes to bsdinstall:
>> 1. Change the default to the 'non-standard keyboard mapping' prompt to no
>> 2. Replace the 3 separate dialogs to configure an ipv4 address with just 1
>> 3. Remove the dialog asking if you wish to enable crash dumps, this
>> feature has been combined into the regular 'services to enable' dialog
>> and enabled by default
>>
>>
>> You can browse the patches here:
>> http://druidbsd.cvs.sf.net/viewvc/druidbsd/bsdinstall_zfs/
>>
>> I've built a bootonly.iso (10.0-ALPHA4) to make testing easier,
>> available compressed (48 MB) or uncompressed (211 MB):
>>
>> http://www.allanjude.com/bsd/zfsbootonly_2013-10-06.iso.xz
>>
>> http://www.allanjude.com/bsd/zfsbootonly_2013-10-06.iso
>>
>>
>> We look forward to your feedback
>>
> Thanks for doing this! I had a few comments:
> 1. ZFS is not bootable on all architectures. Could you adjust that menu
> item to only display for i386, amd64, and (I think?) sparc64. Use uname
> -m, not -p, for this.
I had not considered that, I'll make that change

> 1a. The script is broken on sparc64 in any case, which uses VTOC8
> instead of GPT.
I'll disable sparc64 as well

> 2. Why are you using camcontrol? That is guaranteed not to work on
> non-CAM systems. You should use the GEOM ident string if you need an ID.
The GEOM ident string doesn't do enough to help the user identify which
drive is which.
More data is not exposed anywhere that I could find

What we really need, is dev.ada.0.desc% like we have for network
interfaces and a slew of other devices. GEOM data is great, but it is
not exposed in a shell friendly way any place that I could find, other
than the sysctl with DOT and XML data.

> 3. Any plans to integrate this into the regular partition editor? ZFS
> support is important enough that I will definitely not get in the way,
> even as a bolt-on, but it would be a shame for it to stay that way. The
> editor is also designed for ZFS to be added.
I am a sysadmin, not a programmer. I can't write C. Most people
deploying servers can't write C. I agree with Devin Teske, if everything
was in shell it would be a lot more usable for non-developers, who
probably make up the majority of people who deploy FreeBSD.

> 4. What is this gnop stuff for?
yeah, we align the partitions and the blocks to ensure optimal
performance on 'advanced format' drives, there is no real downside for
older drives, and it saves you from headaches in the future.

> 5. I think some substantial part of the MBR code will blow up if you are
> reinitalizing a previously formatted disk (the bsdlabel will be retasted
> and come back from the dead).
We try to do what we can here, including creating a fresh GPT and MBR
and blowing them away to ensure that anything left over is really dead.
We also use zpool labelclear, which doesn't check if there ever was a
ZFS label, it just blindly overwrites the spots where the label would go.
I'll add some additional napalm to ensure there are no zombie partitions.

> -Nathan
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-- 
Allan Jude
Received on Tue Oct 08 2013 - 21:13:02 UTC

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