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ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

zfsbootmenu.org

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Re: ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

#31

Post by throw0101c »

PlutoIsAPlanet wrote: post #23
erk__ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with most thinks in the linux world it depends on who builds your upstream. ZFS is in the kernel distributed by Ubuntu which is one of the largest distributions. Linux is unlike Eg freebsd not a monolithic operating system, but only a kernel so it is in my opinion not really right to say that it has no support.

> but only a kernel so it is in my opinion not really right to say that it has no support. The kernel has no native support for ZFS. Ubuntu may ship with ZFS, but that's one distro. Meanwhile, RHEL etc won't even touch it. On Linux, XFS dominates and likely will continue to dominate the server world, meanwhile btrfs will slowly erase ext4 in the desktop side of things. Android/Embedded have always used their own diff…

> The kernel has no native support for ZFS.

Neither does it have accelerated Nvidia card support that could be used for things like HPC/AI/ML. Yet I'm administrating an entire cluster of Ubuntu machines with cards just fine.

We generally use the "nvidia-driver-NNN-server" package.

If you want to live ideologically pure no one is going to stop you, but someone of us need to get work done.

Re: ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

#33

Post by E39M5S62 »

esjeon wrote: post #24

I tried this alongside Void Linux, but I found I don't really need it. TBH, this is really cool. I liked that I'm able to choose snapshots for booting - a very good recovery option. The interface is well polished, and comes with fzf for quick searching. It's a true dream for distro hoppers, since ZFS works like thin-provisioned partitions (though distro options are limited due to ZFS). Pretty cool in and out. But it…

I use ZFSBootMenu to boot a single distribution on each of my systems. While it certainly can help booting multiple different environments, the real value-add to me is that my entire OS is contained on a single filesystem. There's no longer a need to make an entirely separate boot pool to work around GRUBs extremely limited ZFS support.

Because ZBM (can) use the kernel and ZFS userland+modules on your own system, it's never really behind what your OS is running. Additionally, since we import the pool read-only by default, new breaking features/pool flags in ZFS typically aren't a problem. It's only when you try to import a pool read-write that ZFS will have issues, so we detect that, warn you and then prevent it from happening.

Since it also ships as an EFI executable that can import/boot any pool, it's really easy to make recovery media. Just throw the EFI on a USB drive with an ESP and name it BOOTX64.EFI and most modern firmware will use it in the absence of any other working boot entries.

Re: ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

#34

Post by nortonham »

seized wrote: post #20

Boot environments are one of those magic features that when you've used it, it's hard to give up. My NAS has long been on OpenIndiana. Boot environments mean zero risk OS upgrades. At one point I could have gone back to a 4 year old OS version and booted it with no data loss. You can create one at any time, so it brings an even better take on VM snapshots to the physical machine world. Hacking on something and want a…

how do you like using OI day to day on your NAS? Any pitfalls or things to be aware of?

Re: ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

#35

Post by boomboomsubban »

throw0101c wrote: post #30
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A) it took linux a long time to add support Linux has no support for ZFS. This is an out-of-tree patch set and therefor a no-go for most including myself. ZFS intentionally has a terrible license and is owned by Oracle. People are free to do what they want but I wish all the time wasted on it could have been put in something more interesting.

> ZFS intentionally has a terrible license The folks on FreeBSD didn't / don't seem to think so. Neither does Apple (who pulled in DTrace, which has the exact same license). > and is owned by Oracle. The OpenZFS folks would don't seem to think so.

>The OpenZFS folks would don't seem to think so.

The OpenZFS people are fully aware that Oracle owns ZFS, that's why they forked the last free copy and made OpenZFS. A small nitpick.

Re: ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

#36

Post by nortonham »

ninefathom wrote: post #16

I'm glad to see interest in this functionality taking off in Linux-land. I think there are one or two other projects with similar goals (i.e. implementing BE selection on Linux) and it might be time for me to do a side-by-side. This capability was something of which the lack on Linux has long puzzled me. Solaris actually implemented a very early incarnation of this ability (called "live upgrades" at the time from its…

what do you use OpenIndiana for?

>This capability was something of which the lack on Linux has long puzzled me.

Agreed. I recently tried out OI "hipster" and the way boot environments are integrated into caja (the file manager) with Time Slider was so smooth it got me thinking why something like it wasn't more popular in linux.

Re: ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

#37

Post by nailer »

hnlmorg wrote: post #7
nailer wrote: post #6

I mean you can’t maintain ZFS normally, and people have been trying to make zfs happen for what… two decades now?

I don’t understand why you’re being snarky. ZFS has been hugely successful since it’s release, and continues to be successful even now. The reason why it’s popular is precisely because it’s easy to maintain.

Not sure why you’d consider criticism of ZFS to he snark. Running any filesystem outside the mainline kernel is a bunch of extra effort and I’m sure as a ZFS user you’d know that. I’m not sure how ZFS could be “hugely successful” after two decades and still not in the Linux kernel.

Re: ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

#39

Post by ghoward »

vermaden wrote: post #38

I still wait for ANY Linux distro that would have installer that would allow you to install Linux with Root on ZFS and with ZFSBootMenu (or any other ZFS Boot Environments tool) ...

I'm in the process of building a NixOS-like distro. I'm 90% certain mine will use these.

Re: ZFSBootMenu – A boot loader to manage ZFS boot environments for Linux

#40

Post by szanni »

vermaden wrote: post #38

I still wait for ANY Linux distro that would have installer that would allow you to install Linux with Root on ZFS and with ZFSBootMenu (or any other ZFS Boot Environments tool) ...

I would love to see that too, but believe this is rather unlikely for any major Linux distro. Why? Because there is no guarantee the required kernel symbols will stay available.

This has for example happened with the linux-rt branch that decided to change the license of some of the exported kernel symbols to GPL, which prevents the ZFS module from compiling.

As far as I can tell, the kernel developers make sure to not break user space but no such guarantees are given for the kernel modules. Having the driver for your root file system possibly not compile on the next kernel update seems like a nightmare to support for any distribution.

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