OpenSolaris

Heads-up: ZFS Boot support for the x86 platform

Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:50:40 -0700
From: Lin Ling <lin.ling at sun dot com>
To: on-all at sun dot com, onnv-gate at onnv dot sfbay dot sun dot com
Subject: Heads-up: ZFS Boot support for the x86 platform

The putback of

        PSARC 2007/083 ZFS bootable datasets
        4929890 ZFS Boot support for the x86 platform
        6479807 pools need properties

adds the capability for x86 GRUB to read in and boot up a ZFS root 
filesystem.

The previously announced ZFS Mountroot support in build 36 will no 
longer work.

The ability to use Solaris Install infrastructure to install a ZFS root 
filesystem
will be available in the future build. In the mean time, you can set up 
a ZFS root
filesystem by using the following methods:

1. Instructions for Manual set up:
    http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/boot/zfsboot-manual/
    (internally, http://fs.central/projects/zfsboot/zfsboot_manual_setup.html)

2. Instructions for Netinstall set up:
    http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/boot/netinstall/
    (internally, http://fs.central/projects/zfsboot/how_to_netinstall_zfsboot)

This putback also requires a ZFS pool version upgrade for the new pool 
property 'bootfs' to support ZFS boot.

Try it out, have fun with it, and send us your feedback to 
zfs-team at sun dot com. Thanks!

The ZFS Boot Team
~--------------------------
Lori Alt
Lin Ling
Tabriz Leman (emeritus)
Matthew Ahrens (for ZFS insight)
Jan Setje-eilers (for GRUB insight)
Michael Byrne, Tim Foster, Robin Guo, Huajian Luo (for testing)
Mark Shellenbaum (for zpool property code)