DEC-850v1 UFS to ZFS

[N0b0dy1985]

Hi, I purchased a DEC-850v1 before ZFS installation was supported, I have upgraded to 24.7.9 and now I'm ready to add a second SSD and move from UFS to ZFS.

I see in the documentation that I can invoke the opnsense-installer from a root shell via SSH. I checked, and it presents me with the option to do a ZFS install. Is this possible (or wise) to try do this via SSH and import the existing configuration?

I have daily FW backups, so if the installation fails I can definitely recover.

Thanks in advance.

[franco]

If you plug in the second disk and boot from the first you should be able to run opnsense-installer from the current installation as it will already clone all your settings so simply install the second disk and that's done.

But you will need to make sure you boot from the correct disk afterwards. Don't do this without a console attached so you can get to the boot menu.


Cheers,
Franco

[N0b0dy1985]

Good thing I asked here first :) I had the USB serial console working at one point, but I'll test it again before I start tonight to make sure I can get into the BIOS that way.

Thanks Franco!

[franco]

Good luck. Let me know how it went :)

[N0b0dy1985]

Thanks for the interest.

The BIOS is upgraded to the latest now. One thing I have noticed is that I don't see it documented anywhere that the serial console on the DEC wants the flow control set to XON/XOFF. That took me a minute to remember from when I had to touch the BIOS last.

The ZFS install didn't happen yet. Seems I ordered the wrong type SSD. I need an NVME for slot 2 and I had purchased a SATA to match the existing in slot 1. Hopefully I'll get ZFS configured tomorrow.

Thanks again for your help Franco! Any everything you do, too!

[franco]

You could also back up the /conf directory on a USB stick with a readable FAT formatting (what FreeBSD calls "msdos") which you can use to import the config from. For step by step guide see below:

https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/install.html#opnsense-importer

That way you still have the old SSD to recover at any moment (minus the work to get it swapped).


Cheers,
Franco

[mooh]

Isn't this a nice opportunity to set the new ZFS up as a mirror, starting with one disk, then adding the old as a second physical device to that mirror once the migration is complete?