bsdinstall, zfs booting, gpt partition order suitable for volume expansion

[Teske, Devin]

On Dec 18, 2013, at 5:53 AM, Adam McDougall wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 08:18:14PM +0000, Teske, Devin wrote:
> 
> 
>  On Dec 14, 2013, at 7:44 PM, Teske, Devin wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On Dec 10, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Devin Teske wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> On Dec 10, 2013, at 9:53 AM, Adam McDougall wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I was wondering if either the default gpt partition order could become
>>>> p1=boot, p2=swap, p3=zpool, or if the installer could be enhanced at
>>>> some point to allow the user to select the order.  It seems like it would
>>>> be easier to expand the size of the raw device (VM, iscsi, etc) and expand
>>>> the zpool if it is the last partition.  I am not in a hurry to get this
>>>> solved, but if a change to the default order is worthwhile, it seems like
>>>> before 10.0 would be a good time to set precedent.  I'm trying to think ahead
>>>> where people will be installing 10 to VMs or expandable volumes so they can
>>>> take advantage of expansion with less hassle.  I pinged Allen Jude on this
>>>> briefly, I think he said it used to be that way but it was changed to
>>>> accomodate MBR partitioning (I think, apologies for not remembering details).
>>> 
>>> Excellent idea. Let me put that into a patch. I'll let you know when I have
>>> something that tests clean.
>> 
>> GPT proved trivial.
>> MBR on the other hand... that proved challenging.
>> 
>> While trying to best that challenge... I uncovered more than a couple nasty bugs
>> while iterating over every possible combination in the installer.
>> 
>> That being said... I'm coming out of the "tunnel" since you sent this e-mail and
>> will soon have something to commit that implements this suggestion while at
>> the same time, plugging a few edge-cases.
> 
>  Alrighty-then... time to share...
> 
>  Here's the commit that does what you want...
> 
> [snip]
> I did my testing in virtualbox with 4 5g disk images.

I'm skeptical that 5g is big enough. Without knowing much more
about your setup (GPT v MBR; SWAP v No-SWAP; GELI v No-GELI),
I'd just like to say that there are a couple combinations that would
overflow that...

E.g., GPT + GELI + SWAP by default would be better at 6GB per disk.
E.g., MBR + SWAP would similarly work better at 6GB per disk.

While there is code to make sure you don't use disks that are too small,
I can't say whether it catches every edge-case.

NB: The nature of the error doesn't look to be based on using disks that
are too small; I just thought I would mention it because 5G looks too small
to me for some layouts.


>  Whether or not the
> installer continues, it does seem to partition the disks as discussed.
> 
> When I hit F3 I see:
> DEBUG: zfs_create_boot: Creating root pool...
> DEBUG: zfs_create_boot: zpool create -o altroot=/mnt -m none -f "zroot" ada0p3.nop ada1p3.nopzpool create ada2p3.nop ""
> DEBUG: zfs_create_boot: retval=1 <output below>
> cannot open 'ada1p3.nopzpool': no such GEOM provider


If you send me the entire log, I can likely pinpoint the issue. That data
displayed on Alt-F3 is saved in /tmp/bsdinstall_log
-- 
Devin


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