Re: [pfSense] pfSense 2.4 with ZFS, will it solve corrupt systems
Is setting the copies=2 option slated to be part of the regular installer? I recall copies=2 must enabled after-the-fact from the CLI. Enabling after-the-fact is slightly problematic, because ZFS will only make multiple copies of NEW blocks written, so in effect the system has is without redundancy of most blocks until, say, after a major update. I'm running several of these APU2's with discrete drives. https://twitter.com/karlfife/status/878833005426561024 On 8/6/2017 1:18 PM, Vick Khera wrote: On Sat, Aug 5, 2017 at 9:07 AM, Jim Pingle wrote: On 8/5/2017 8:59 AM, Arthur Wiebe wrote: This is more out of curiosity to verify that I'm correct, with pfSense 2.4 using ZFS will that solve the issue where an SG appliance will stop booting because of a corrupt filesystem and require a reinstall? ZFS can only protect you from on-disk corruption if you have multiple copies of your data. So you either need mirror or raidz with multiple drives, or set the number of copies per block to a number higher than 1 on a single disk. I've had too many cases where for whatever reason a box was shutdown improperly (could be the client unplugging it for example) and the system became corrupt and worked fine after re-installing the OS. ZFS is very robust against this particular scenario, because the on-disk state is always consistent. The UFS file system journaling is also very robust against this, but does on occasion need a manual fsck to clean up. I've never had a system corrupt itself so bad that I had to re-install (running FreeBSD for 18+ years on dozens of machines). I'm hoping that ZFS with it's data integrity and rollback features will solve this issue. Am I right? And if so we should consider re-installing existing installations with pfSense 2.4 so that it installs using ZFS? ZFS is self-healing and though we have not been able to reproduce the corruption issues seen by some with UFS, all evidence points to ZFS not being susceptible to those problems. Will pfSense on a single-disk install set the copies per block to > 1 to afford additional protection against corruption? Seems like a small price to pay given how little disk pfSense needs and how big SSDs are these days. ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
Re: [pfSense] pfSense 2.4 with ZFS, will it solve corrupt systems
On Sat, Aug 5, 2017 at 9:07 AM, Jim Pingle wrote: > On 8/5/2017 8:59 AM, Arthur Wiebe wrote: > > This is more out of curiosity to verify that I'm correct, with pfSense > 2.4 > > using ZFS will that solve the issue where an SG appliance will stop > booting > > because of a corrupt filesystem and require a reinstall? > > > ZFS can only protect you from on-disk corruption if you have multiple copies of your data. So you either need mirror or raidz with multiple drives, or set the number of copies per block to a number higher than 1 on a single disk. > > I've had too many cases where for whatever reason a box was shutdown > > improperly (could be the client unplugging it for example) and the system > > became corrupt and worked fine after re-installing the OS. > > ZFS is very robust against this particular scenario, because the on-disk state is always consistent. The UFS file system journaling is also very robust against this, but does on occasion need a manual fsck to clean up. I've never had a system corrupt itself so bad that I had to re-install (running FreeBSD for 18+ years on dozens of machines). > > > > > I'm hoping that ZFS with it's data integrity and rollback features will > > solve this issue. > > > > Am I right? And if so we should consider re-installing existing > > installations with pfSense 2.4 so that it installs using ZFS? > > ZFS is self-healing and though we have not been able to reproduce the > corruption issues seen by some with UFS, all evidence points to ZFS not > being susceptible to those problems. > > Will pfSense on a single-disk install set the copies per block to > 1 to afford additional protection against corruption? Seems like a small price to pay given how little disk pfSense needs and how big SSDs are these days. ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
Re: [pfSense] pfSense 2.4 with ZFS, will it solve corrupt systems
Your hope is my hope, but there isn't a lot of runtime on ZFS as yet. I recommend a SSD and copies=2. > On Aug 5, 2017, at 8:07 AM, Jim Pingle wrote: > >> On 8/5/2017 8:59 AM, Arthur Wiebe wrote: >> This is more out of curiosity to verify that I'm correct, with pfSense 2.4 >> using ZFS will that solve the issue where an SG appliance will stop booting >> because of a corrupt filesystem and require a reinstall? >> >> I've had too many cases where for whatever reason a box was shutdown >> improperly (could be the client unplugging it for example) and the system >> became corrupt and worked fine after re-installing the OS. >> >> I'm hoping that ZFS with it's data integrity and rollback features will >> solve this issue. >> >> Am I right? And if so we should consider re-installing existing >> installations with pfSense 2.4 so that it installs using ZFS? > > ZFS is self-healing and though we have not been able to reproduce the > corruption issues seen by some with UFS, all evidence points to ZFS not > being susceptible to those problems. > > ZFS does have increased RAM requirements so you have to be mindful of > RAM usage and enabled features so that you don't run yourself out of > memory. On systems with 4GB or RAM of more, it should be safe to use. It > also requires a 64-bit OS, but any of the SG devices would be 64-bit so > that shouldn't be a concern. > > Jim > ___ > pfSense mailing list > https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list > Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
Re: [pfSense] pfSense 2.4 with ZFS, will it solve corrupt systems
If space is not an issue, you can also set the zfs property copies=2. This provides some protection against unreadable blocks. On 2017-08-05 10:54 AM, Adam Thompson wrote: True, but it's also a journaling filesystem (effectively, even if that's not quite the curvy technical term for it) so is far less prone to random corruption on hard (unexpected) shutdowns / reboots. Best of both worlds is to use ZFS boot off mirrored disks, but that also increases cost and only protects against two common failure modes. At least here, I lose power frequently. (For periods longer than I'm prepared to spend on UPS to protect, thank you.) I've had corrupt filesystem once, never want that again. I've had disk failure zero times, at least I don't waste time debugging it when that happens. So single-device ZFS should be an improvement over the current state of affairs no matter what. -Adam On August 5, 2017 11:16:20 AM CDT, Rainer Duffner wrote: Am 05.08.2017 um 15:07 schrieb Jim Pingle : ZFS is self-healing and though we have not been able to reproduce the corruption issues seen by some with UFS, all evidence points to ZFS not being susceptible to those problems. It’s really only „self-healing“ if you have two or more disks. That’s (one reason) why they recommend to not use hardware-RAID. ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
Re: [pfSense] pfSense 2.4 with ZFS, will it solve corrupt systems
True, but it's also a journaling filesystem (effectively, even if that's not quite the curvy technical term for it) so is far less prone to random corruption on hard (unexpected) shutdowns / reboots. Best of both worlds is to use ZFS boot off mirrored disks, but that also increases cost and only protects against two common failure modes. At least here, I lose power frequently. (For periods longer than I'm prepared to spend on UPS to protect, thank you.) I've had corrupt filesystem once, never want that again. I've had disk failure zero times, at least I don't waste time debugging it when that happens. So single-device ZFS should be an improvement over the current state of affairs no matter what. -Adam On August 5, 2017 11:16:20 AM CDT, Rainer Duffner wrote: > >> Am 05.08.2017 um 15:07 schrieb Jim Pingle : >> >> ZFS is self-healing and though we have not been able to reproduce the >> corruption issues seen by some with UFS, all evidence points to ZFS >not >> being susceptible to those problems. > > >It’s really only „self-healing“ if you have two or more disks. > >That’s (one reason) why they recommend to not use hardware-RAID. > > >___ >pfSense mailing list >https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list >Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
Re: [pfSense] pfSense 2.4 with ZFS, will it solve corrupt systems
> Am 05.08.2017 um 15:07 schrieb Jim Pingle : > > ZFS is self-healing and though we have not been able to reproduce the > corruption issues seen by some with UFS, all evidence points to ZFS not > being susceptible to those problems. It’s really only „self-healing“ if you have two or more disks. That’s (one reason) why they recommend to not use hardware-RAID. ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
Re: [pfSense] pfSense 2.4 with ZFS, will it solve corrupt systems
I hadn't considered the increased memory requirements so thanks for pointing that out. We only use the SG or virtual appliances so we'll just check how much memory is allocated before doing any re-installs. On Sat, Aug 5, 2017 at 9:07 AM Jim Pingle wrote: > On 8/5/2017 8:59 AM, Arthur Wiebe wrote: > > This is more out of curiosity to verify that I'm correct, with pfSense > 2.4 > > using ZFS will that solve the issue where an SG appliance will stop > booting > > because of a corrupt filesystem and require a reinstall? > > > > I've had too many cases where for whatever reason a box was shutdown > > improperly (could be the client unplugging it for example) and the system > > became corrupt and worked fine after re-installing the OS. > > > > I'm hoping that ZFS with it's data integrity and rollback features will > > solve this issue. > > > > Am I right? And if so we should consider re-installing existing > > installations with pfSense 2.4 so that it installs using ZFS? > > ZFS is self-healing and though we have not been able to reproduce the > corruption issues seen by some with UFS, all evidence points to ZFS not > being susceptible to those problems. > > ZFS does have increased RAM requirements so you have to be mindful of > RAM usage and enabled features so that you don't run yourself out of > memory. On systems with 4GB or RAM of more, it should be safe to use. It > also requires a 64-bit OS, but any of the SG devices would be 64-bit so > that shouldn't be a concern. > > Jim > -- Arthur Wiebe | +1 519-670-5255 ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
Re: [pfSense] pfSense 2.4 with ZFS, will it solve corrupt systems
On 8/5/2017 8:59 AM, Arthur Wiebe wrote: > This is more out of curiosity to verify that I'm correct, with pfSense 2.4 > using ZFS will that solve the issue where an SG appliance will stop booting > because of a corrupt filesystem and require a reinstall? > > I've had too many cases where for whatever reason a box was shutdown > improperly (could be the client unplugging it for example) and the system > became corrupt and worked fine after re-installing the OS. > > I'm hoping that ZFS with it's data integrity and rollback features will > solve this issue. > > Am I right? And if so we should consider re-installing existing > installations with pfSense 2.4 so that it installs using ZFS? ZFS is self-healing and though we have not been able to reproduce the corruption issues seen by some with UFS, all evidence points to ZFS not being susceptible to those problems. ZFS does have increased RAM requirements so you have to be mindful of RAM usage and enabled features so that you don't run yourself out of memory. On systems with 4GB or RAM of more, it should be safe to use. It also requires a 64-bit OS, but any of the SG devices would be 64-bit so that shouldn't be a concern. Jim ___ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
