install onto zfs

[dieterarn]

hi all,

poking around the forum i found:
https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=19.msg444#msg444

which talks about being able to install OPNsense onto bootable zfs. Any update? Does this work now?

if not any chance this technique from pfsense would work?:
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=94656.0

[dieterarn]

so i had a poke around with virtual box. With pfsense 2.2.2 i was able to get a booting zfs mirror up and running as per the previously posted instructions. It appears that the "graphical install method" is missing from opnsense (maybe the fork was after 2.2.2?)

reading https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=505.msg1709#msg1709 from 2015 i noticed franco's response:

Quote from: SilverJS on May 26, 2015, 09:17:05 PM

    2.  ZFS support.  I know someone else had already mentioned this in a separate thread, and Franco (as I recall) had mentioned he'd consider it.  I'd just like to add my voice to the chorus requesting this.  I can tell you that, in the short while I've used boot environments in FreeNAS 9.3 (been using FreeNAS since the very early 8.x versions), that they have already proven their worth and utility to me.  Anybody who's had trouble with an upgrade of any kind can relate to this, I'm sure.  I understand this is much more long-term, and that the team has higher-priority items for now - but, all I'm asking is, that you not let this drop from your crosscheck. =)

This is still a huge task ahead of us. I've recently fixed package installations on ZFS systems, but for now two major issues are stopping us from deploying ZFS in a release:

(a) the rc system won't boot off a zfs system as it is not aware of its idiosyncrasies
(b) the installer needs a zfs install option

After those steps are tackled, we can start to phase in boot environments and the like. If anybody is willing to help I'd be happy to guide and review changes to make this happen rather sooner than later. Hope that helps.

so i guess this stuff is still on the drawing boards... I was intrigued about his use of

I've recently fixed package installations

and i found this post which seemed to indicate you can convert a vanilla installation of freebsd into opnsense: https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=1480.msg4481#msg4481. but that same thread also has Johan2 having trouble converting his freebsd with zfs on root to opnsense.

it appears from the digital ocean guide that franco mentioned and his comment that  package installations have been fixed that is it as "simple" as installing freebsd on zfs and using the package they mention to convert freebsd into opnsense...

I guess what i'm asking is: is converting a freebsd with zfs on root installation to opnsense a viable way to get a working opnsense on zfs installation working these days?

[dieterarn]

So i tried:

• Installing FreeBSD 10.3 onto my virtual machine...  and used Root-on-ZFS Automatic Partitioning to setup a 3 way mirror...
• then after the installer finished i put wget on the system

Code: [Select]

pkg install wget

• then i used wget to download the .sh that franco created to convert a freeBSD install into opnsense

Code: [Select]

wget --no-check-certificate https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opnsense/update/master/bootstrap/opnsense-bootstrap.sh

• then i chmod'ed the file to 1700 and ran it
• it looked like it all worked but then towards the end of the boot of the system i got a message like "php warning : fwrite expects parameter 1 to be a resource..." see attached screen shot. The fact that there are 3 messages make me think it is likely to do with my zfs tom foolery...

 

am i playing with fire: yes. Do i know what I'm doing: no. still any thoughts would be quite appreciated...

[franco]

Hi there,

So far so good. 

The instructions indicate there are problems with ZFS by requiring UFS: https://github.com/opnsense/update#opnsense-bootstrap

In order to get ZFS as a standard feature into OPNsense we need to:

(a) Add the RC bits so that it boots ok (your current problem), and
(b) Add installer support.

I think (a) is relatively easy to accomplish following FreeBSD's baseline. (b) takes longer and nobody ever contributed to the installer, which makes it a wild guess wether this can materialise in 17.1 on a whole. However, I think (a) is doable in that timeframe.

At this point I do not know any details about (a) and (b).


Cheers,
Franco

[dieterarn]

i created a new post over on the 17.1 alpha category since this is clearly not stuff for 16.7: https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=3602.msg12137#msg12137