From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Thu Oct 20 03:48:49 2016 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 7E300C18902 for ; Thu, 20 Oct 2016 03:48:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rnmtw70@yandex.com) Received: from forward4p.cmail.yandex.net (forward4p.cmail.yandex.net [77.88.31.19]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "forwards.mail.yandex.net", Issuer "Yandex CA" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 369DD750 for ; Thu, 20 Oct 2016 03:48:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rnmtw70@yandex.com) Received: from smtp3j.mail.yandex.net (smtp3j.mail.yandex.net [IPv6:2a02:6b8:0:801:1::12]) by forward4p.cmail.yandex.net (Yandex) with ESMTP id CBFBA20C5B; Thu, 20 Oct 2016 06:48:44 +0300 (MSK) Received: from smtp3j.mail.yandex.net (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by smtp3j.mail.yandex.net (Yandex) with ESMTP id 3C3D36240475; Thu, 20 Oct 2016 06:48:43 +0300 (MSK) Received: by smtp3j.mail.yandex.net (nwsmtp/Yandex) with ESMTPSA id MbzVZ8UaBy-mgIGwKLA; Thu, 20 Oct 2016 06:48:43 +0300 (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client certificate not present) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yandex.com; s=mail; t=1476935323; bh=XKkBslNCDKDjvndcMzhoqWsDrMD2JAT4bx13kHqnuXk=; h=Subject:To:References:From:Message-ID:Date:In-Reply-To; b=ugVtKHAOvJpVD+fr3yV/chEWMtroGFZY2/JzumoE9SuKMhNYBZKKWoY9Wa28pJpte lwgOOZOQqOZaSoArEbOt2jc9vY7VbOzl0KdNlMNVADZ2aFkKiHB5xkjcFYnS0Ev4Za 1rTSYLH/ImjWztu4jMzEGQ2ZNVUS7PeDqQzkSLDI= Authentication-Results: smtp3j.mail.yandex.net; dkim=pass header.i=@yandex.com X-Yandex-Suid-Status: 1 0,1 0 Subject: Re: BSD labels vs. root-on-ZFS To: Aryeh Friedman , FreeBSD Mailing List References: From: Rolf Nielsen Message-ID: Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 05:48:41 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit 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: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 03:48:49 -0000 On 2016-10-20 05:17, Aryeh Friedman wrote: > I have a SSD that doesn't work with any partioning scheme except BSD labels > (fought with it over GPT [all variants] and MBR [BIOS]). How do I install > the OS with ZFS in this case? > You can create a small a partition, e.g. ada0a, that contains only the boot directory, then another partition, e.g. ada0e, that will be the ZFS device. The a partition should be UFS (type 4.3BSD) and the other partition should be set to type ZFS. The boot directory on the a partition should have the same files as the boot directory on / in a standard installation, and it is required to be called boot, or the loader will not find the kernel and config files. Also keep in mind, that whenever you update your system, the boot files will be installed in /boot rather than in the boot directory of the smaller partition, so you'll need to copy it to the smaller partition. I have such a setup myself, and I handle this by having the boot directory of the small partition an exact copy of /boot, and whenever I update, I mount the small partition on /mnt, cd to / and issue the following command. cp -fa boot /mnt This has served me well for several years. loader.conf(5) needs to be edited to include vfs.root.mountfrom="zfs:sysroot" Substitute the name of your pool for sysroot. -- Vänligen / Sincerely, Rolf Nielsen