amd64/140661: /boot/loader fails to work on a GPT/ZFS-only system on both 8.0-RC2 and RC3

Wed Nov 18 13:00:08 UTC 2009

>Number:         140661
>Category:       amd64
>Synopsis:       /boot/loader fails to work on a GPT/ZFS-only system on both 8.0-RC2 and RC3
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-amd64
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed Nov 18 13:00:07 UTC 2009
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Kenneth Vestergaard Schmidt
>Release:        8.0-RC2
>Organization:
pil.dk
>Environment:
FreeBSD mckusick.pil.dk 8.0-RC2 FreeBSD 8.0-RC2 #0: Fri Oct 30 17:04:18 CET 2009     root at mckusick.pil.dk:/usr/obj/dana/src/freebsd8/src/sys/MCKUSICK  amd64
>Description:
Two machines tested, and both fail. Both installed according to http://wiki.freebsd.org/RootOnZFS/GPTZFSBoot but one of them with an added disk in a mirror.

Both installed and working as 8.0-RC1. Both fail after upgrading to 8.0-RC2, and ditto when trying 8.0-RC3.

Upon booting, the following messages are visible just prior to an automatic reboot:

  Can't work out which disk we are booting from.
  Guessed BIOS device 0xffffffff not found by probes, defaulting to disk0:
  ficl-s not found
  Assertion failed: (FALSE), function ficlCompileSoftCore, file softcore.c, line 428.

/boot/loader.conf contains:
  zfs_load="YES"
  vfs.root.mountfrom="zfs:pil"

mckusick# zpool get bootfs pil
NAME  PROPERTY  VALUE   SOURCE
pil   bootfs    pil     local

>How-To-Repeat:
Upgrade to something newer than 8.0-RC1. Reboot.

>Fix:
Downgrade /boot/loader to the one from 8.0-RC1.

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: