failed update

[skacem]

Hi
i've installed the 24.1 OPNsense version through the ISO image on HyperV then VMware
once i lauch update, it fails and i cannot access it anymore, i must redo the install from the beginning
please find in attachment the errors displayed
Thanks

[skacem]

it is about disk space unavailable during the update
i m still trying to understand

i gave the VM 10GB disk space
after the failure of the update i booted through GPARTED, and i found that OPNsense partitioned the 10GB disk space creating an 8GB swap partition! and giving the zfs root just 1.54GB!

i don't understand this auto partitioning, normally the swap partition must be 1GB or 2GB disk space at most
i've also tried to use thick disk instead of thin one, (fixed disk in HyperV), but it always the same issue, OPNsense create the biggest partition for the swap

is there a way to adjust the swap partition size ?
i tried to delete it via GPARTED, but once i tried to create a new one more smaller, GPARTED doesn't have the swap for freebsd type

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Give the virtual disk 20G already, it's 2024 ... 

OK, admittedly not very helpful, real help further down. But I think 4 G of memory and 8 G of swap is the bare minimum to run *anything*. Just to boot Linux or FreeBSD before you think about the workloads you put on it. But that might be just me.

I don't think you can change the swap size in the OPNsense installer.

FreeBSD comes with a pretty capable partition tool with a nice and intuitive syntax. It's called "gpart". If you boot in single user mode you can repartition the live system.

What I really do not know is if you can grow a ZFS partition towards the front instead of the back of the existing one. You would have to try.

After changing the partition layout to grow the ZFS pool it would be

Code: [Select]

zpool online -e zroot da0p4 # if the virtual disk is da0
A simpler way might be to install a stock FreeBSD 13.3, partition to your liking, and then use the bootstrap method to turn plain FreeBSD into OPNsense.


A last comment: when running in a virtualised environment - specifically if you are concerned about disk space - ZFS might not be the best choice. A thin provisioned virtual disk with ZFS will grow to the maximum provisioned size. Always. This is due to the copy-on-write nature of ZFS.

If you are comfortable with taking snapshots and backups from outside the VM using the hypervisor's features for that, UFS is the better choice, IMHO.

[franco]

A vital file was lost here it seems which makes recovery pretty annoying if you can't log into the box and temporarily restore WAN access through vanilla FreeBSD commands.

However, if you mange to get there, the recovery is easy:

# opnsense-bootstrap


Cheers,
Franco

[skacem]

Thanks a lot for your replies
it is ok, i tried with 20GB and it is working fine
just a habit, trying to migrate from my other pfsense(s) where i've always used just a 10GB disk
(not for firewalling, VPN, but mainly for load balancing, reverse proxy with ver few loads)

@Patrick M. Hausen
thanks for your explanation
when i deleted the swap partition, i was able to move the partition toward the front with GPARTED so i can later extend it toward the back, but the problem is that i couldnt recreate the swap partition with smaller size as GPARTED lack its filesystem type
i understand the differences between ZFS and UFS, i've got by past some crashes with UFS that's why i opt for ZFS, but you're right, the ability to do snapshots and fast restore while working in virtual mode give more insurance

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Then don't move it all the way to the front with gparted, but leave e.g. 2 G of empty space, then create a new swap partition with gpart from running OPNsense/FreeBSD.