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Date:      Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:33:45 +0100
From:      Peter Maloney <peter.maloney@brockmann-consult.de>
To:        Cody Ritts <cr@caltel.com>
Cc:        freebsd-fs@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Aligning MBR for ZFS boot help
Message-ID:  <513EF679.2080402@brockmann-consult.de>
In-Reply-To: <513C1629.50501@caltel.com>
References:  <513C1629.50501@caltel.com>

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On 2013-03-10 06:12, Cody Ritts wrote:
> I think remember reading that freebsd-zfs had to be the first slice (I
> cannot remember where i read that).  And it apparently does not think
> an offset is funny. 

For the gptzfsboot boot loader (and don't know which others), the
bootable zfs slice has to be in the same pool as the first slice found.

Or in other words, the first ZFS slice found by the bootloader must be
the cache, log, or data vdev of the bootable pool.

I learned this the hard way ;)  www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=160706

eg.

this would fail:
slice 1 - freebsd-boot
slice 2 - zfs /tank
slice 3 - zfs root with /boot

this would also fail:
slice 1 - freebsd-boot
slice 2 - zfs /tank L2ARC cache
slice 3 - zfs root with /boot

this would probably work (fits the rule, but I didn't test it):
slice 1 - freebsd-boot
slice 2 - zfs root L2ARC cache
slice 3 - zfs /tank
slice 4 - zfs root with /boot

and this will definitely work:
slice 1 - freebsd-boot
slice 2 - zfs root with /boot
slice 3 - zfs /tank

Above examples are with gptzfsboot loader; not sure if you need a
freebsd-boot for others.

And FYI in possibly all BIOS machines (non-EFI), the boot slice probably
needs to be before a certain sector... not sure which number, maybe
2.2TB/2.0TiB. I always just put it first. On my FreeBSD zfs machines, I
put it at sector 34 which is badly aligned but means the next regular
one can start at 2048, which saves me a whole megabyte!


-- 

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Peter Maloney
Brockmann Consult
Max-Planck-Str. 2
21502 Geesthacht
Germany
Tel: +49 4152 889 300
Fax: +49 4152 889 333
E-mail: peter.maloney@brockmann-consult.de
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