Documentation and Instructions

Documentation and Instructions

Instructions

 Currently you can use bfu archives to install zfs as your root filesystem. You can find bits and source code on the Downloads page. Detailed instructions on how to install are below:

• Manual Install Instructions

 Note that currently only x86 bits are available for download. SPARC bits are currently in the works

What is a BFU and how do I do it?

 Unless you're fluent in Solaris speak, you may not be familiar with BFU. BFU is a beautiful thing, it stands for Blindingly Fast Upgrade a.k.a. Bonwick/Faulkner Upgrade, because developers are impatient and nobody wants to constantly reinstall their machine. This is a way to upgrade the subset of a system's binaries that are delivered by the ON consolidation that uses cpio(1) archives instead of packages to improve speed. For more information see 5.3 Using BFU to Install ON

•  Instructions to BFU archives

Known Issues

• Will we support USB booting. I believe that this is mostly a matter of testing and verification.
• May need to enhance bootadm to do a more thorough test of what constitutes a boot environment. Right now, any file system with a multiboot file qualifies. Maybe also check for /etc/system, or some other file that would exist on a BE.
• The general issue of how to keep the zpool.cache consistent between different BEs in the same pool (or even in different pools). What happens if while one BE is booted, a new zpool is created? When a different BE in the same root pool is booted, it won't know about the new pool. Possible solution: keep the zpool.cache file in the root dataset.=== Known Boot Bugs
  • ZFS Boot Alpha bits do not currently work on SPARC, but we are working on it.
  • ACLs are not entirely preserved when copying files from a ufs root to a zfs root. ZFS will convert ufs style ACLs to the new NFSv4 acls, but they may not be entirely identical.
  • It is not advised to set up a pool larger than 2 Terrabytes (there are a whole slew of applications that do not support filesystems of this size).
  • 5008936 ZFS and/or zvol should support dumps
  • 6423745 zfs root pool created while booted 64 bit can not be booted 32 bit
  • 6436526 delete_queue thread reporting drained when it may not be true
  • 6420204 root filesystem's delete queue not running
  • 6440500 no login prompt (hang) when filesystem/local fails