On Jan 2, 2013, at 2:10 PM, Matthew Seaman <m.sea...@infracaninophile.co.uk>
wrote:
> On 02/01/2013 17:49, Paul Mather wrote:
>> Yesterday, I updated my RELENG_8 ZFS-only system that has worked like a
>> champ for ages. After a successful install{kernel,world} and reboot, I
>> noticed the 20121130 entry in /usr/src/UPDATING and upgraded my ZFS pool via
>> "zfs upgrade -a". I also upgraded my boot blocks as requested, and as per
>> the "ZFS notes" section of /usr/src/UPDATING.
>>
>> Unfortunately rebooting with the upgraded pool failed. The "windmill" boot
>> spinner spins for a tiny amount of time and then stops dead. :-( I don't
>> get to the boot loader menu at all.
>>
>> I downloaded a very recent RELENG_8 snapshot
>> (FreeBSD-8.3-RELENG_8-r244923-JPSNAP-amd64-amd64-memstick.img) from
>> pub.allbsd.org and was able to boot successfully from USB using that. I
>> entered Fixit Mode and tried to write the boot blocks on the memstick image
>> onto my hard drives but the resultant system still wouldn't boot. The
>> commands I used (from Fixit Mode) are these:
>>
>> gpart bootcode -b /dist/boot/pmbr -p /dist/boot/gptzfsboot -i 1 ad4
>> gpart bootcode -b /dist/boot/pmbr -p /dist/boot/gptzfsboot -i 1 ad6
>>
>> (ad4 and ad6 are my two hard drives.)
>>
>> If I "load zfs" before booting the USB memstick then I can see my old pool
>> listed when I do "zfs import". I haven't tried importing the pool because
>> I'm not sure if that would make the problem worse.
>>
>> Does anyone have any advice in restoring this system to bootability? I
>> followed the standard "root on ZFS" recipe using a two drive mirror when
>> installing the system initially. Each drive uses GPT with three partitions:
>> freebsd-boot, freebsd-swap, and freebsd-zfs in that order. Like I said at
>> the start, all this worked for a long time until just now when I upgraded
>> the pool to enable "feature flags" support. :-(
>>
>> Any help is appreciated.
>
> I think you may be running into problems with zpool.cache. This has
> been fixed in current, which now has the ability to find the root zpool
> without a valid zpool.cache, but that I suspect is faint comfort for you.
>
> To recover from a toasted zpool.cache, you need to boot from alternate
> media and then import your root zpool. It's easiest to do that to a
> temporary directory. The important bit is to copy the zpool.cache onto
> your actual zroot device:
>
> -- Boot from install media to 'Live CD' and log in as root (no password)
Given the above, does this need to be a -CURRENT Live CD? I've been using the
RELENG_8 snapshot memstick.img mentioned in my original message above.
>
> # kldload zfs -- should load opensolaris.ko automatically
> # cd /tmp -- this should be a writable MFS; you'll
> need to arrange something similar if
> not.
> # zpool import -o cachefile=/tmp/zpool.cache -R /tmp/zroot zroot
> -- this should create a zpool.cache file
I tried this and it complained about the pool being in use by another
system---the original system that won't boot any more. I expected this, and
added "-f" to force an import.
> # cp zpool.cache /tmp/zroot/boot/zfs/
This part also failed for me. My "zroot" fileset has a mountpoint property set
to "legacy". I had to mount this manually, via "mount -t zfs zroot /tmp/zroot"
to make the /tmp/zroot/boot/zfs directory accessible.
> # zfs umount -a
> # shutdown -r
>
> Eject the install media, and the system should boot up from your root spool.
Unfortunately, it didn't boot from the root pool. I get the same thing
happening: the "windmill" spins for a very short time and then stops dead. I
don't even make it to the "BTX Loader" output, let alone the boot loader menu
options. :-(
Thank you for the suggestions.
Cheers,
Paul.
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