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Date:      Mon, 24 Dec 2012 15:27:36 +0200
From:      Kimmo Paasiala <kpaasial@gmail.com>
To:        Andriy Gapon <avg@freebsd.org>
Cc:        FreeBSD Stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: [HEADSUP] zfs root pool mounting
Message-ID:  <CA%2B7WWSdtaCr5PQNPqq=13R6nBS%2BXB=0Qpc5DzPp_bTViuEanew@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <50D6FDBD.6000401@FreeBSD.org>
References:  <50B6598B.20200@FreeBSD.org> <50D6F901.7050206@FreeBSD.org> <CA%2B7WWSeR2Wv6zzTmLTHqmQ-F0Y=8rLx%2BaB8PLnqk6G6PSDWOuQ@mail.gmail.com> <50D6FDBD.6000401@FreeBSD.org>

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On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 2:49 PM, Andriy Gapon <avg@freebsd.org> wrote:
> on 23/12/2012 14:34 Kimmo Paasiala said the following:
>> On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 2:28 PM, Andriy Gapon <avg@freebsd.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> I have MFCed the following change, so please double-check if you might be
>>> affected.  Preferably before upgrading :-)
>>>
>>> on 28/11/2012 20:35 Andriy Gapon said the following:
>>>>
>>>> Recently some changes were made to how a root pool is opened for root filesystem
>>>> mounting.  Previously the root pool had to be present in zpool.cache.  Now it is
>>>> automatically discovered by probing available GEOM providers.
>>>> The new scheme is believed to be more flexible.  For example, it allows to prepare
>>>> a new root pool at one system, then export it and then boot from it on a new
>>>> system without doing any extra/magical steps with zpool.cache.  It could also be
>>>> convenient after zpool split and in some other situations.
>>>>
>>>> The change was introduced via multiple commits, the latest relevant revision in
>>>> head is r243502.  The changes are partially MFC-ed, the remaining parts are
>>>> scheduled to be MFC-ed soon.
>>>>
>>>> I have received a report that the change caused a problem with booting on at least
>>>> one system.  The problem has been identified as an issue in local environment and
>>>> has been fixed.  Please read on to see if you might be affected when you upgrade,
>>>> so that you can avoid any unnecessary surprises.
>>>>
>>>> You might be affected if you ever had a pool named the same as your current root
>>>> pool.  And you still have any disks connected to your system that belonged to that
>>>> pool (in whole or via some partitions).  And that pool was never properly
>>>> destroyed using zpool destroy, but merely abandoned (its disks
>>>> re-purposed/re-partitioned/reused).
>>>>
>>>> If all of the above are true, then I recommend that you run 'zdb -l <disk>' for
>>>> all suspect disks and their partitions (or just all disks and partitions).  If
>>>> this command reports at least one valid ZFS label for a disk or a partition that
>>>> do not belong to any current pool, then the problem may affect you.
>>>>
>>>> The best course is to remove the offending labels.
>>>>
>>>> If you are affected, please follow up to this email.
>>
>> Much appreciated!
>>
>> I have verified that my system is not affected.
>>
>> One question, do I have to rewrite the zfs gpt boot loader
>> (/boot/gptzfsboot) onto the freebsd-boot partition to make use of this
>> change?
>
> This change is kernel-level only.  There is no interaction with boot blocks.
>
> --
> Andriy Gapon

I can happily report that booting from the ZFS pool works on my
9-STABLE system without the zpool.cache file.

Thanks, merry christmas and happy new year!

-Kimmo



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