3 ms·

Using ZFS makes this all a lot simpler.

deathanatos 4y ago
I fail to see how? The ESP partition must be vFAT on GPT, in order for the BIOS to find it. Your BIOS doesn't speak ZFS. The main partition can be whatever, but that's not typically available until after the kernel & initramfs are loaded. (As it is typically initramfs that does the prompt for the password, to decrypt it.)
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
ZFS is the "crypto solves this" of filesystems. Adding out of tree ZFS to the boot mix sounds hella complicated.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  Interestingly, GRUB actually supports ZFS; it has the dubious distinction of being the only extant implementation of ZFS that's GPL licensed, but... probably because of that... it's separate from the main OpenZFS implementation is extremely feature-poor. This results in fun things like Ubuntu's root-on-ZFS layout creating 2 pools; a boot pool (bpool) that GRUB can read, and a root pool (rpool) with the OS. It's not that complicated, but it's not nice.
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    That's because in the mid-oughts Solaris used GRUB for booting. It's really nice because you get to boot from multiple datasets in the same pool so upgrades and downgrades can be very smooth.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    Interesting. I've never really wanted on boot on ZFS, and I definitely don't see the point if I'd need a dedicated pool for it.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      It could be really cool; it would let you snapshot your boot filesystem and roll back to a previous configuration. ...I say, as someone who does in fact leave my boot filesystems on VFAT:)
      - vetinari 4y ago
        Ubuntu did snapshot the bpool; unfortunately, it did a poor job of garbage collecting the snapshots. Meaning that eventually you would have failing kernel updates due to lack of space, and having to manually clean it up. Since 22.04, zsys (the tool that did the snapshoting) is not installed by default.
        yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
        > Since 22.04, zsys (the tool that did the snapshoting) is not installed by default. Er, are they not snapshotting the root filesystem or ex. /home by default then?
        vetinari 4y ago
        No, you have to install and enable zsys yourself.
    - cryptonector 4y ago
      It's a lot easier to manage one pool occupying one large partition on all the disks in the pool than it is to manage any number of partitions without pooling.
- cryptonector 4y ago
  Ubuntu does it.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  It isn't really. For instance I have 3 Things installed on my EFI partition. - Windows - A Linux kernel with zfs zupport sufficient to boot up and load zfsbootmenu - rEFInd boot menu The default target is rEFInd which shows this snazzy menu to choose between Windows and Linux https://i.redd.it/n51sxvv8xfw61.jpg https://i.redd.it/n51sxvv8xfw61.jpg If you choose Linux the zfsbootmenu kernel boots up imports available pools and lets you boot your current system or a prior snapshot of same. If you have regular snapshots especially automated ones before upgrades its pretty hard to mess it up. The whole works is one small partition and is fairly easy to understand
iio7 4y ago
No, it does not.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

I fail to see how? The ESP partition must be vFAT on GPT, in order for the BIOS to find it. Your BIOS doesn't speak ZFS. The main partition can be whatever, but that's not typically available until after the kernel & initramfs are loaded. (As it is typically initramfs that does the prompt for the password, to decrypt it.)

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

ZFS is the "crypto solves this" of filesystems. Adding out of tree ZFS to the boot mix sounds hella complicated.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
Interestingly, GRUB actually supports ZFS; it has the dubious distinction of being the only extant implementation of ZFS that's GPL licensed, but... probably because of that... it's separate from the main OpenZFS implementation is extremely feature-poor. This results in fun things like Ubuntu's root-on-ZFS layout creating 2 pools; a boot pool (bpool) that GRUB can read, and a root pool (rpool) with the OS. It's not that complicated, but it's not nice.
- cryptonector 4y ago
  That's because in the mid-oughts Solaris used GRUB for booting. It's really nice because you get to boot from multiple datasets in the same pool so upgrades and downgrades can be very smooth.
- Volundr 4y ago
  Interesting. I've never really wanted on boot on ZFS, and I definitely don't see the point if I'd need a dedicated pool for it.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    It could be really cool; it would let you snapshot your boot filesystem and roll back to a previous configuration. ...I say, as someone who does in fact leave my boot filesystems on VFAT:)
    - vetinari 4y ago
      Ubuntu did snapshot the bpool; unfortunately, it did a poor job of garbage collecting the snapshots. Meaning that eventually you would have failing kernel updates due to lack of space, and having to manually clean it up. Since 22.04, zsys (the tool that did the snapshoting) is not installed by default.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
        > Since 22.04, zsys (the tool that did the snapshoting) is not installed by default. Er, are they not snapshotting the root filesystem or ex. /home by default then?
        vetinari 4y ago
        No, you have to install and enable zsys yourself.
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    It's a lot easier to manage one pool occupying one large partition on all the disks in the pool than it is to manage any number of partitions without pooling.
cryptonector 4y ago
Ubuntu does it.
michaelmrose 4y ago
It isn't really. For instance I have 3 Things installed on my EFI partition. - Windows - A Linux kernel with zfs zupport sufficient to boot up and load zfsbootmenu - rEFInd boot menu The default target is rEFInd which shows this snazzy menu to choose between Windows and Linux https://i.redd.it/n51sxvv8xfw61.jpg https://i.redd.it/n51sxvv8xfw61.jpg If you choose Linux the zfsbootmenu kernel boots up imports available pools and lets you boot your current system or a prior snapshot of same. If you have regular snapshots especially automated ones before upgrades its pretty hard to mess it up. The whole works is one small partition and is fairly easy to understand

iio7 4y ago

No, it does not.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]