Problems booting into ZFS on recent stable/9

[Kurt Lidl]

On Mon, Jul 01, 2013 at 03:08:00PM -0400, Chris Ross wrote:
> 
> On Jul 1, 2013, at 14:55 , Kurt Lidl wrote:
> > As luck would have it, I just ran into this problem on an amd64 host
> > on Friday.
> > 
> > You are missing the 'zfs_load="YES"' from your /boot/loader.conf file.
> > 
> > If you have access to a serial console, this is easy to fix.
> 
>   I think that isn't my problem.  I believe I have that in my loader.conf (is there a "cat" equivalent in the boot loader?), and I can see zfs.ko being loaded:
> 
> bootpath="zfs:zroot:"
> Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf 
> Loading /boot/loader.conf 
> /boot/kernel/kernel data=0x682758+0xa9ef0 syms=[0x8+0x8bef0+0x8+0x84bfa]
> /boot/kernel/zfs.ko text=0x220788 data=0x9be0+0x17e78 syms=[0x8+0x18ee8+0x8+0x139b4]
> loading required module 'opensolaris'
> /boot/kernel/opensolaris.ko text=0x30b0 data=0x2c8+0x2030 syms=[0x8+0xd80+0x8+0x91d]
> /boot/kernel/geom_mirror.ko text=0x381b0 data=0x5a0+0x20 syms=[0x8+0x1698+0x8+0x118a]
> /
> Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt.
> Booting [/boot/kernel/kernel] in 4 seconds... 
> 
>   I think this means that I have zfs_load="YES" in my loader config, already, along with the vfs.root.mountfrom="zfs:zroot"
> 
>   That all seem right?

Yes, that seems correct.  I assumed, from your prior posting that
the only setting was the vfs.root.mountfrom= line.  On an amd64 host,
not having the zfs_load="YES" in the /boot/loader.conf file
gets exactly the "...failed with error 2." failure message.

Based on this further output, we know:
	- the first level bootstrap is loading
	- the "partition" code at the front of the ZFS filesystem is loading
	- the /boot/loader.conf file is found and read
	- the /boot/kernel/kernel file is loading off the zfs filesystem
	- the /boot/kernel/zfs.ko and /boot/kernel/opensolaris.ko files loaded
	- the /boot/kernel/geom_mirror.ko file loaded too

So, your machine is getting pretty close to fully loaded.
Knowing it is close doesn't actually get it booted, however.

I have not personally upgraded my sparc64 machines to a newer stable/9
in a couple of months either.  I suppose I will power one up and
start rebuilding...

-Kurt