mounting failed with error 2

[Jay Borkenhagen]

Hi Andriy,

Thanks for your response.  

Andriy Gapon writes:
 > 
 > My first suggestion would be to try an image with recent stable/9
 > if you can find or produce it.

A large part of my interest here is in helping Niclas perfect his
GPT/ZFS installation instructions, so I'll not pursue the stable/9
approach at this time.  (I have two GPT/ZFS systems running
9.1-RELEASE based on earlier instructions from Niclas, so if I
absolutely need another such system now I do have a way to get there.)


 > Failing that, you can set vfs.zfs.debug=1 at loader prompt before
 > booting.  That could shed some light on what is going wrong.  The
 > most likely possibility is that /boot/zfs/zpool.cache in the
 > boot/root filesystem of the boot/root pool does not have an entry
 > for the root pool.

I just tried 'set vfs.zfs.debug=1' then 'boot' at the loader prompt,
and it seems I wound up at the exact same place with no further debug
diagnostics.  I believe the important part of that error output is
this: 

===============
Trying to mount root from zfs:zroot/ROOT []...
Mounting from zfs:zroot/ROOT failed with error 2.

Loader variables:
  vfs.root.mountfrom=zfs:zroot/ROOT
===============

If there's something else you'd like me to specify to the boot loader,
please let me know and I will give it a try today.


 > Further, I believe that instructions on the Niclas' page won't
 > result in a bootable pool with 9.0 or 9.1.  With stable/9 they
 > should work.  The problem is that zpool.cache is not populated at
 > all.  You can try to specify cachefile property to zpool create and
 > then copy zpool.cache to boot/zfs/ on the newly created pool.

I would be willing to attempt a re-install using Niclas' instructions
plus something to populate the zpool.cache.  Can you (or Niclas)
suggest what command(s) to add to the process at which stage?

Thank you.

						Jay B.