Installing ZFS on Devuan Mirrored Root

little · 2018-11-25 02:04:24

NOTE: Read the whole guide, before starting. Some warnings are AFTER commands are written. Also read the whole attached github guide this is based off of.

This is my log from installing ZFS on the root of Devuan, with a mirrored (two hdd) setup. tl;dr everything works.

This is the main guide
https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/ … oot-on-ZFS

I see this guide:
https://www.klaus-hartnegg.de/gpo/2017- … evuan.html

but I don't think it's necessary to install from compilation in ASCII.
He mentions (in a side box, which is easy to miss)
"Installing zfs-dkms from contrib
in Devuan 2 works
like described here,
but it is old version 6.5.9."

I don't mind the old version, as it's likely to be stable. That's why it's in the repos.

I'm using an x86-64 devuan ascii minimal live cd. You should be using x86-64.

Steps:

First add contrib archive to existing apt/sources

e.g.
deb http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged ascii main
to
deb http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged ascii main contrib

I'm using apt-get not apt. Both should work.
apt-get install debootstrap gdisk dpkg-dev linux-headers-$(uname -r)

follow the zfsonlinux guide
I'm using mirrored root.

this command:
sgdisk -a1 -n2:34:2047 -t2:EF02 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk1

-a means set sector alignment
-n is make new partition. here it is partition 2 with start at sector 34
end at sector 2047
-t is partition type

Note that this command uses the /dev/disk/by-id command.

sgdisk is the same functionally as gdisk and the hex codes for -t are:

0700 Microsoft basic data 0c01 Microsoft reserved 2700 Windows RE
4100 PowerPC PReP boot 4200 Windows LDM data 4201 Windows LDM metadata
7501 IBM GPFS 7f00 ChromeOS kernel 7f01 ChromeOS root
7f02 ChromeOS reserved 8200 Linux swap 8300 Linux filesystem
8301 Linux reserved 8302 Linux /home 8400 Intel Rapid Start
8e00 Linux LVM a500 FreeBSD disklabel a501 FreeBSD boot
a502 FreeBSD swap a503 FreeBSD UFS a504 FreeBSD ZFS
a505 FreeBSD Vinum/RAID a580 Midnight BSD data a581 Midnight BSD boot
a582 Midnight BSD swap a583 Midnight BSD UFS a584 Midnight BSD ZFS
a585 Midnight BSD Vinum a800 Apple UFS a901 NetBSD swap
a902 NetBSD FFS a903 NetBSD LFS a904 NetBSD concatenated
a905 NetBSD encrypted a906 NetBSD RAID ab00 Apple boot
af00 Apple HFS/HFS+ af01 Apple RAID af02 Apple RAID offline
af03 Apple label af04 AppleTV recovery af05 Apple Core Storage
be00 Solaris boot bf00 Solaris root bf01 Solaris /usr & Mac Z
bf02 Solaris swap bf03 Solaris backup bf04 Solaris /var
bf05 Solaris /home bf06 Solaris alternate se bf07 Solaris Reserved 1
bf08 Solaris Reserved 2 bf09 Solaris Reserved 3 bf0a Solaris Reserved 4
bf0b Solaris Reserved 5 c001 HP-UX data c002 HP-UX service
ea00 Freedesktop $BOOT eb00 Haiku BFS ed00 Sony system partitio
ef00 EFI System ef01 MBR partition scheme ef02 BIOS boot partition
fb00 VMWare VMFS fb01 VMWare reserved fc00 VMWare kcore crash p
fd00 Linux RAID

I'm going to be mirroring root so I'll use this command on both drives.

sgdisk -a1 -n2:34:2047 -t2:EF02 ata-WDC_WD10JPVX-5555555_WXA1AA755555
sgdisk -a1 -n2:34:2047 -t2:EF02 ata-WDC_WD10JPVX-5555555_WXC1AA7C5555

He mentions to 'always' use the long /dev/disk/by-id aliases
though this is contrary to what Damian Wojstaw says in
"Introducing ZFS on Linux". So it is open to debate.

I'll be using that book to assist with the github steps.

then this command:
sgdisk -n1:0:0 -t1:BF01 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk1
for each hdd

next command for me:

zpool create \
-O atime=off -O canmount=off -O compression=lz4 -O normalization=formD \
-O mountpoint=/ -R /mnt \
rpool \
mirror /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk1-part1 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk2-part1

NOTE: from guide:Make sure to include the -part1 portion of the drive path. If you forget that, you are
specifying the whole disk, which ZFS will then add another partition, then you have to start over.

NOTE: I am NOT setting ashift, as recommended by the zfs guide. This is from the pre-mentioned book,
who recommends not setting it blindly (unless you know what you are doing - I don't). See the book for more details.

NOTE: I am also not setting acl acceleration with xattr=sa. This may be harmless, but there's
a slight chance
I will move to BSD or Solaris for fun at some point. Probably not, but I don't need the perfo
rmance increase.

if you make a mistake: zpool destroy rpool, then start over.
If necessary, you can gdisk and erase the partitions and start again.
dont use fdisk, or else youll have to add the gpt back with gdisk (invalid partition table error)

check it with # zpool status

root@devuan:/dev/disk/by-id# zpool status
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
scan: none requested
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WD10JPVX-5555555_WXA1AA755555 ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WD10JPVX-5555555_WXC1AA7C5555 ONLINE 0 0 0
errors: No known data errors

zfs create -o canmount=off -o mountpoint=none rpool/ROOT

I'm going to skip making the datasets section, as I want one partition for root.
so only one create command:
//https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_ZFS#Format_the_destination_disk
zfs create -o canmount=noauto -o mountpoint=/ rpool/ROOT/debian

which was that
so /zpool/ROOT/debian is already mounted at /mnt

per a $ mount command
it does NOT have a lost&found folder, so it's simply blank.

though:

root@devuan:/# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
tmpfs 386M 628K 385M 1% /run
/dev/sr0 363M 363M 0 100% /lib/live/mount/medium
/dev/loop0 344M 344M 0 100% /lib/live/mount/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs
tmpfs 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /lib/live/mount/overlay
overlay 1.9G 436M 1.5G 23% /
tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 771M 0 771M 0% /run/shm
tmpfs 1.9G 4.0K 1.9G 1% /tmp
rpool/ROOT/debian 899G 128K 899G 1% /mnt

it is listed.

debootstrap ascii /mnt
notice it's not stretch, but ascii

and follow the rest of the steps. I had some trouble at the beginning when I used the ZFS create command on the disk and not the part1 partition (oops), but that is resolvable with gpart (and a reboot).

Worked well for me. Boots into ZFS, mirrored root devuan.

So far, so good with ZFS. I'll update if I learn anything else.

Last edited by little (2018-11-25 02:07:03)

little · 2020-10-13 18:33:38

Update: The ZFS computers are still in operation, however anytime there is an update to ZFS, it requires the kernel to manually re-compile. From what I understand, this is due to the NON GPL and (even) NON BSD licensing used by the ZFS project. I think theres a work around, but it requires manual intervention. On a high end server this may not be a big deal, but on my old computers - it takes a while.

So I wouldn't use ZFS again. Next time I would adopt B-tree FS (BTRFS) which isn't trapped by restrictive licensing or mdadm.

Last edited by little (2020-10-13 18:36:33)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-10-13 20:04:46

It may also be worth noting that the ZFS kernel modules won't be signed with Debian's Secure Boot key so that will have to be disabled (or the ZFS modules will have to be signed with a custom Secure Boot key which must then be enrolled).

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 2018-11-25 02:04:24

Installing ZFS on Devuan Mirrored Root

#2 2020-10-13 18:33:38

Re: Installing ZFS on Devuan Mirrored Root

#3 2020-10-13 20:04:46

Re: Installing ZFS on Devuan Mirrored Root

Board footer