Re: I am sick and tired of the poor quality of documentation on FreeBSD
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2023 04:49:20 UTC
On 11/21/23 11:51, iio7@tutanota.com wrote: > ... upgrade ... > Pool 'zroot' has the bootfs property set, you might need to update the boot code. > See gptzfsboot(8) and loader.efi(8) for details. > > I might need to update the boot code!? WTF does that even mean? > > I never touched any boot code during installation so I don't even know what that is! And reading those man pages did NOT help me in any way. > > So now I got a box that's borked with this beautiful message after updating the zroot pool: > > ZFS: unsupported feature: com.delphix:head_errlog > ZFS: pool zroot is not supported > Can't find /boot/zfsloader > Can't find /boot/loader > Can't find /boot/kernel/kernel On 11/21/23 13:10, iio7@tutanota.com wrote: > ... > https://www.daemonology.net/blog/2023-11-21-late-breaking-FreeBSD-14-breakage.html > ... On 11/21/23 15:22, iio7@tutanota.com wrote: > Enough with the assumptions! > ... I upgraded a ZFS boot pool and ZFS root pool last year, and encountered a similar warning: https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-questions/2022-July/001593.html The following article was helpful for understanding the FreeBSD boot process: https://klarasystems.com/articles/the-freebsd-boot-process/ It might be possible to fix your FreeBSD instance: 1. Study the klarasystems article and determine the boot loader sequence for your computer, what stages/ files go where, and why. 2. Boot FreeBSD installer media into a rescue shell. 3. Crawl the FreeBSD installer shell script, following the path you would take if you were installing FreeBSD on that computer. Find the sections of installer code that write boot loader files from the installer media to various blocks on the system disk -- MBR, space between MBR and first slice, slices, BSD partition(s), etc.. Compare the installer files against disk blocks using cmp(1). If you find differences, write the installer files to the appropriate system disk blocks with dd(1). 4. If and when you get to installer files copied into a system disk ZFS file system, stop and see if the previous steps fixed the boot issue. 5. To access the system disk ZFS file systems, import the system disk pool(s) using the '-R altroot' option to avoid confusion due to overlaid file systems. I suggest taking an image of your system disk before attempting any of the above. Alternatively, remove the system disk, install a zeroed disk, do a fresh install, and restore from backups. Beware of installing multiple disks with identically named ZFS pools -- e.g. two system disks with pools "bootpool" and "zroot". It is safer to use the FreeBSD installer if you need to work on a ZFS system disk. David