From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Wed Jun 14 08:06:01 2017 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B0D0D88780 for ; Wed, 14 Jun 2017 08:06:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from frank2@fjl.co.uk) Received: from bs1.fjl.org.uk (bs1.fjl.org.uk [84.45.41.196]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "bs1.fjl.org.uk", Issuer "bs1.fjl.org.uk" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 1C1557EBB8 for ; Wed, 14 Jun 2017 08:06:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from frank2@fjl.co.uk) Received: from [192.168.1.119] (host81-134-87-65.range81-130.btcentralplus.com [81.134.87.65]) (authenticated bits=0) by bs1.fjl.org.uk (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id v5E85nqo007446 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Wed, 14 Jun 2017 09:05:52 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from frank2@fjl.co.uk) Message-ID: <5940EE63.2080904@fjl.co.uk> Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2017 09:05:55 +0100 From: Frank Leonhardt Reply-To: frank2@fjl.co.uk Organization: Frank Leonhardt User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.7.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Drive labelling with ZFS References: <03643051-38e8-87ef-64ee-5284e2567cb8@fjl.co.uk> <7fa67076-3ec8-4c25-67b9-a1b8a0aa5afc@holgerdanske.com> In-Reply-To: <7fa67076-3ec8-4c25-67b9-a1b8a0aa5afc@holgerdanske.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.23 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2017 08:06:01 -0000 On 14/06/2017 03:02, David Christensen wrote: > On 06/13/2017 04:32 PM, David Christensen wrote: >> Both [1] and [3] discuss the fact that a given drive, partition, file >> system, etc., can be identified in various ways, manual or automatic, >> but the kernel will pick one and "wither" the rest. Once a GPT label is >> set manually, other methods should be disabled via settings in >> /boot/loader.conf and the system rebooted ([1] p. 35): >> >> kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0" >> kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0" > > Beware that all your disks need to have GPT labels, and those labels > need to be carried forward into /etc/fstab, etc., before you reboot, > as the kernel won't be able to find the disks using Disk ID or GPT > GUID labels once those methods are disabled. > > Thanks David. I'd actually tried all the things you suggested, and read and re-read the Lucas books which blithely suggest setting GEOM labels but without going in to detail. The first chapter is all over the place in structure. However, I didn't try the sysctrl tweaks you suggest to disable the other methods. I recall the books suggesting that other methods are disabled, but without telling you how. You may well have supplied the missing piece of the jigsaw here. It's a shame ZFS can't be told which labelling method to use (or can it?) Current situation is less than helpful. The new SAS enclosure utility in 11.0 is great. It can flash the light on any drive you like, but it only takes device names, not GUIDs. And if ZFS fails /dev/da87p3 it immediately changes to referring to it by the GUID only. I can see why assuming the drive is completely off-line but in most cases it's JUST failed, and therefore knowing where it was is the same as knowing where it is. Part of the problem is that zpools created by sysinstall during installation are on unlabelled partitions. Actually it does label them, but not in any helpful way. Regards, Frank.