Ok How do I boot this monster?

[Brandon J. Wandersee]

Baho Utot writes:

> On 11/17/16 15:59, Brandon J. Wandersee wrote:
>> Baho Utot writes:
>>
>>> On 11/17/16 14:19, Warren Block wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 17 Nov 2016, Baho Utot wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Can this also boot the raidz?
>>>> No, boot0 is MBR-only.  The easiest way I see to do this is to install
>>>> gptzfsboot bootcode to the ZFS drives and choose one of them from the
>>>> BIOS boot menu.  Grub can multi-boot GPT also, although it needs a
>>>> small partition of its own.
>>> I think the bsdinstall puts that code onto the zfs drives already or am
>>> I miss informed?
>> I believe it should in its unadulterated state. But then you hacked the
>> installer, introducing a new variable.
>>
>>> Would creating the raidz on MBR partitions be an answer?
>> It would be *an* answer, but I'm not sure I would consider it *the*
>> answer. It would basically place an expiration date on your new install,
>> since it would depend on older hardware to keep functioning. A more
>> recent motherboard would not be able to read the drives without legacy
>> BIOS support, so you might not be able to just transplant the disks into
>> a new machine when the time came.
>>
>> I would recommend just using gpart(8) to install the correct bootcode
>> (/boot/gptzfsboot) as Warren suggested. The trouble, though, is
>> that---unless I'm mistaken---that bootcode requires a dedicated
>> partition. Configuring the system to boot would require 128k partitions
>> to be created at the start of each disk to hold the bootcode, and that
>> would mean either manually partitioning the drives (which is the typical
>> way of installing to a custom ZFS setup) or writing more code into your
>> custom bsdinstall.
>>
>
> Don't read too much into  the "hacked bsdinstall version", I ain't that 
> good.  All I did was this.....
>
> from:
> f_eval_catch $funcname gpart "$GPART_ADD_LABEL" \
>                       zfs$index freebsd-zfs $disk || return $FAILURE
> to:
> f_eval_catch $funcname gpart "$GPART_ADD_LABEL_WITH_SIZE" \
>                       zfs$index freebsd-zfs 800Gb $disk || return $FAILURE
>
> The raidz will boot if I pull the other drives and let it boot with just 
> the 4 zfs raidz drives so I know it will boot.  Just have to get it to 
> play nice with the other systems (win7 and 10.0) and boot.
>
> I just need to configure out how to make it boot with the other drives.  
> Hand holding required.

Ah, I see. I must have misread something; I thought FreeBSD wasn't
booting at all. As you describe it now, it sounds like the motherboard
firmware is defaulting to a particular disk and finding the one
bootloader. Which is how it always works, but I judging from earlier
responses you might be accustomed to GRUB presenting you with a menu to
chain-load systems from.

If you have a newer motherboard, the board's firmware might have a
hotkey tied to a built-in boot menu you can use without the need for
GRUB or something similar. In the case of my five-year-old laptop it's
F12.

-- 
::  Brandon J. Wandersee
::  brandon.wandersee at gmail.com
::  --------------------------------------------------
::  'The best design is as little design as possible.'
::  --- Dieter Rams ----------------------------------