Archive > 20.1 Legacy Series

Installation on ZFS

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danb35:
I'm looking at moving from pfSense to OPNsense, but I'm a definite fan of pfSense's root-on-ZFS installation option.  I don't see that in OPNsense, unless it's hidden somewhere--it's certainly not as prominent as it is in the FreeBSD 11.2 installer.

But OPNsense has the bootstrap installer, so I can install FreeBSD 11.2 on ZFS and then run that script, right?  I've tested it, and it seems to work--at least to the point of being able to pull up the OPNsense web GUI.  But I'm a little concerned, since the documentation says:

--- Quote ---What it will also do is turn a supported stock FreeBSD release into an OPNsense installation, given that UFS was used to install the root file system.

--- End quote ---
Am I setting myself up for trouble here?  Is this an obsolete caveat in the manual?  Or is something else going on?

pouakai:
It's worth reading this forum post https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=12267.0, particularly posts 14 and 15.

I installed to ZFS  a few weeks ago, and the same note on the documentation gave me some concerns, but all went smoothly.

You do have to use the same FreeBSD version as Opnsense (that's 11.2 for for 20.1).  Newer versions of FreeBSD work until you reboot, giving a mount error.  I think this is because the ZFS package in Opnsense is older than the installed filesystem in later versions of FreeBSD and therefore incompatible.

Poking around the directory structure, Opnsense seems to have all the support for installed ZFS, and it's working nicely.  Thanks to the developers!

danb35:
Thanks, I'd missed that thread in my searching--though I see there's the standard anti-ZFS FUD there too...  Edit: I should clarify that.  It seems a lot of people, including one poster in that thread, believe that ZFS' hardware requirements are the same as FreeNAS', which just isn't true.  No, ZFS doesn't need 8GB of RAM (though yes, it will use as much as you have for caching, though it will release it if it's needed by other processes).  No, it doesn't need ECC RAM.

I installed it Tuesday afternoon as described--install FreeBSD 11.2 on ZFS then run the script.  There were a few obstacles (mostly dealing with the serial console on the SG-2440 box and trying to import configuration from pfSense), but it's now up and running and seems to be working well.  But I'd still like to know why that note's in the docs...

franco:
Sorry, this was copied from update.git README but that has been out of date for a few years as well it seems.

https://github.com/opnsense/update/commit/3298b03636
https://github.com/opnsense/docs/commit/104de351009


Cheers,
Franco

Patrick M. Hausen:
OMG ... must install again I fear  ;)

@danb35, nice to meet you, Ambassador.

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