From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 2 22:31:17 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: Questions@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6972106566C for ; Wed, 2 Jul 2008 22:31:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dokpm0@Phideaux.RawFedDogs.net) Received: from Phideaux.RawFedDogs.net (Phideaux.RawFedDogs.net [64.251.15.37]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B30768FC12 for ; Wed, 2 Jul 2008 22:31:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dokpm0@Phideaux.RawFedDogs.net) Received: from cpe-24-243-189-26.hot.res.rr.com ([24.243.189.26] helo=Blaidd-Drwg.RawFedDogs.net) by Phideaux.RawFedDogs.net with esmtpa (Exim 4.69 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1KEATo-000JLj-L9 for Questions@FreeBSD.org; Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:07:14 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 17:07:06 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevin Monceaux X-X-Sender: dokpm0@Blaidd-Drwg.RawFedDogs.net To: FreeBSD Questions Message-ID: User-Agent: Alpine 1.10 (BSF 962 2008-03-14) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII Sender: dokpm0@Phideaux.RawFedDogs.net Cc: Subject: "New" user with a possible ZFS problem X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:31:17 -0000 FreeBSD Fans, Okay, I'm not exactly a "new" user. I've been running FreeBSD for about a year or so on my web/mail server, which I only have remote access to. It's currently running 6.3. Saturday I finally found one of those "round tuits" and switched my home PC from Debian to FreeBSD. I've been a Linux user since the 1.xx Linux kernel days, so it took quite a bit of convincing myself to make the switch. But other than needing to unlearn some bad habits I got into thanks to Linux, I'm feeling right at home. After getting a taste of ZFS while trying out OpenSolaris Indiana under VMware, I decided to give FreeBSD's ZFS implementation a try. Actually before installing FreeBSD I tried a native OpenSolaris Indiana install briefly, but ended up deciding it's new package system wasn't quite ready for prime time yet. Do I really need ZFS? Not really. But after getting a taste of ZFS it'd be hard to go back to "regular" file systems. I've had a couple of problems and I'm not sure if there ZFS related or not. When I switched my PC to FreeBSD this past Saturday I went by the article located at: http://www.ish.com.au/solutions/articles/freebsdzfs to set up ZFS. I followed the article's loader.conf tweaks advice and added: vm.kmem_size_max="512M" vm.kmem_size="512M" vfs.zfs.zil_disable=1 to /boot/loader.conf. All went well at first, then eventually I experienced my first hang. If I remember correctly, I had an mp3 playing via mplayer and was moving a large file from one ZFS "partition" to another. Both the mp3 player and mv command appeared to hang. Checking top one of the processes was in a zfs:lo state and the other was, I think, in a zfs:&b state, or something similar. I forget which was which. Eventually they recovered. Eventually I encountered a similar hang with similar symptoms. The second hang might have eventually recovered on it's own but I finally resorted to hitting the power switch. After a little Googling on the process states I tried adding: vfs.zfs.prefetch_disable="1" to /boot/loader.conf. After doing so I gave ZFS a bit of a workout. I shuffled some large files around, etc., and all appeared well. When I went to bed this morning, I had to work graveyards last night, I had an openoffice.org build running, which had been running for eight hours or so. Okay, although I usually install everything from ports maybe I should go with the binary package for OpenOffice. Anyway, when I got up this afternoon my PC was completely locked up. I had no video signal, caps lock and num lock wouldn't change the keyboard LEDs, etc. I finally resorted to hitting the power button. After getting things back up, I freebsd-updated to 7.0-RELEASE-p2, after some Googling and commenting out the chflag calls in freebsd-update. I know, I should have checked for updates right after I finished installing FreeBSD. Anyway, does the above hangs all sound like they're ZFS related. Are there any other settings I should try? Is there a FreeBSD ZFS mailing list? I searched but couldn't find one. Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes. Longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla!!!