Change block size on ZFS pool

Trond Endrestøl Trond.Endrestol at fagskolen.gjovik.no
Mon May 12 15:44:56 UTC 2014


On Mon, 12 May 2014 14:43+0200, Matthias Fechner wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I upgraded now a FreeBSD 9 to version 10.
> Now my zpool says:
>   pool: zroot
>  state: ONLINE
> status: One or more devices are configured to use a non-native block size.
>         Expect reduced performance.
> action: Replace affected devices with devices that support the
>         configured block size, or migrate data to a properly configured
>         pool.
>   scan: scrub repaired 0 in 42h48m with 0 errors on Mon May  5 06:36:10 2014
> config:
> 
>         NAME                                            STATE     READ
> WRITE CKSUM
>         zroot                                           ONLINE       0
>    0     0
>           mirror-0                                      ONLINE       0
>    0     0
>             gptid/504acf1f-5487-11e1-b3f1-001b217b3468  ONLINE       0
>    0     0  block size: 512B configured, 4096B native
>             gpt/disk1                                   ONLINE       0
>    0     0  block size: 512B configured, 4096B native
> 
> My partition are aligned to 4k:
> =>        34  3907029101  ada2  GPT  (1.8T)
>           34           6        - free -  (3.0K)
>           40         128     1  freebsd-boot  (64K)
>          168     8388608     2  freebsd-swap  (4.0G)
>      8388776  3898640352     3  freebsd-zfs  (1.8T)
>   3907029128           7        - free -  (3.5K)
> 
> But it seems that the ZFS pool is not aligned correctly.
> 
> Is there a possibility to correct that online without taking the pool
> offline?

No.

I can think of one rather dangerous approach, using gpt/disk1 as the 
victim. However, the real victim is your precious pool and its (then) 
sole member, gptid/504acf1f-5487-11e1-b3f1-001b217b3468.

Mind you, what I propose is dangerous, and untested, and it leaves you 
with absolutely NO redundancy while performing the steps below.

If your zroot pool contains important data, you should consider buying 
a pair of new harddrives, or at least buy one new harddrive. Partition 
the new harddrives similar to the existing ones. Create a new 
mirrored, 4K pool using the gnop trick as shown below and transfer 
your precious data using a recursive snapshot and the zfs send/receive 
commands.

You have been warned!

What follows is a potentially dangerous and untested procedure off the 
top of my head:

1. Detach one of the mirrors, say gpt/disk1, using:

zpool detach zroot gpt/disk1

2. Clear all ZFS labels on gpt/disk1:

zpool labelclear gpt/disk1

3. Create a gnop(8) device emulating 4K disk blocks:

gnop create -S 4096 /dev/gpt/disk1

4. Create a new single disk zpool named zroot1 using the gnop device 
as the vdev:

zpool create zroot1 gpt/disk1.nop

5. Export the zroot1 pool:

zpool export zroot1

6. Destroy the gnop device:

gnop destroy /dev/gpt/disk1.nop

7. Reimport the zroot1 pool, searching for vdevs in /dev/gpt:

zpool -d /dev/gpt zroot1

8. Create a recursive snapshot on zroot:

zfs snapshot -r zroot at transfer

9. Transfer the recursive snapshots from zroot to zroot1, preserving 
every detail, without mounting the destination filesystems:

zfs send -R zroot at transfer | zfs receive -duv zroot1

10. Verify that zroot1 has indeed received all datasets:

zfs list -r -t all zroot1

11. Verify, and if necessary, adjust the bootfs property on zroot1:

zpool get bootfs zroot1

(If necessary: zpool set bootfs=zroot1/blah/blah/blah zroot1)

12. Reboot the computer into singleuser mode, making sure to boot from 
the zroot1 pool. If this is not possible, you might need to physically 
swap the harddrives.

13. Don't perform any zfs mount operations while in singleuser mode as 
you don't want to deal with any conflicting filesystems from the 
zroot1 pool and the original zroot pool.

14. Destroy what remains of the original zroot pool:

zpool destroy zroot

15. Simply attach gptid/504acf1f-5487-11e1-b3f1-001b217b3468 or, 
gpt/disk0 if it exists, to the zroot1 pool, using gpt/disk1 as a 
guide:

zpool attach zroot1 gpt/disk1 gptid/504acf1f-5487-11e1-b3f1-001b217b3468

OR

zpool attach zroot1 gpt/disk1 gpt/disk0

The latter alternative depends on the gpt label being properly set for 
the gptid/504acf1f-5487-11e1-b3f1-001b217b3468 partition.

16. Wait patiently while you allow the newly attached mirror to 
resilver completely. You may want check on the progress by issuing:

zpool status -v

17. You might want to rid yourself of the @transfer snapshot:

zfs destroy -r zroot1 at transfer

18. If you want to rename the zroot1 pool back to zroot, you need to 
do so from a stable/10 snapshot, CD or memstick, capable of using all 
the enabled zpool features:

zpool import -fN zroot1 zroot

Reboot WITHOUT exporting the zroot pool!

If you depend on the /boot/zfs/zpool.cache file, you might want to 
update that file by doing these commands instead:

zpool import -fN -o cachefile=/tmp/zpool.cache zroot1 zroot

(import any other pools using the -fN -o cachefile=/tmp/zpool.cache options)

mkdir /tmp/zroot
mount -t zfs zroot /tmp/zroot
cp -p /tmp/zpool.cache /tmp/zroot/boot/zfs/zpool.cache

Be sure to mount the right dataset, i.e. your bootfs.

19. If you swapped the harddrives in step 12, you might want to 
rearrange your harddrives back into the right order.

Think very carefully about the steps in this laundry list of mine, I 
might have missed something vital. If possible, first do some 
experiments on an expendable VM to verify my claims.

Creating a new 4K zpool and transfering your data is by far the safer 
route.

I hope someone more knowledgeable on ZFS will chime in if what I 
propose is clearly mistaken.

Be very careful!

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