Ubuntu On a ZFS Root File System for Ubuntu 14.04

This is an update post to making an Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) OS work with ZFS root volume. Mostly the instructions remains the same as a previous post so this is a shortened version:

Booting Ubuntu on a ZFS Root File System

Small warning I did this 4 times. It worked the first time but of course I did not document it well the first time and when I tried again I had grub issues.

Step 1:

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$ sudo -i
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# apt-add-repository --yes ppa:zfs-native/stable

** Don”t need grub ppa as per github instructions???

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# apt-get update
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# apt-get install debootstrap ubuntu-zfs

** Will take quite a while kernel modules compiles!!

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# modprobe zfs
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# dmesg | grep ZFS:
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[ 1327.346821] ZFS: Loaded module v0.6.2-2~trusty, ZFS pool version 5000, ZFS filesystem version 5

Step 2:

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# ls /dev/disk/by-id
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ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419
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ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part1
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ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part2
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# fdisk /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419

** Make partitions as follow

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# fdisk -l /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419
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                                                 Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
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/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part1   *        2048      206847      102400   be  Solaris boot
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/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part2          206848    16777215     8285184   bf  Solaris

Step 3:

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# mke2fs -m 0 -L /boot/grub -j /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part1
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# zpool create -o ashift=9 rpool /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part2
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# zpool list
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NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE    CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
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rpool  7.88G   117K  7.87G     0%  1.00x  ONLINE  -
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# zfs create rpool/ROOT
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# zfs create rpool/ROOT/ubuntu-1
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# zfs umount -a
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# zfs set mountpoint=/ rpool/ROOT/ubuntu-1
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# zpool export rpool

Step 4:

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# zpool import -d /dev/disk/by-id -R /mnt rpool
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# mkdir -p /mnt/boot/grub
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# mount /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk1-part1 /mnt/boot/grub
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# debootstrap trusty /mnt

WTF: ** System seems hung. I see on a different terminal there was a messages system restart required. Weird. If you get this after debootstrap you have to redo Step 1 and Step 4.1 then…Is this because of only 2G RAM?

Step 5:

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# cp /etc/hostname /mnt/etc/
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# cp /etc/hosts /mnt/etc/
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# tail -1 /mnt/etc/fstab
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/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part1  /boot/grub  auto  defaults  0  1
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# mount --bind /dev  /mnt/dev
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# mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
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# mount --bind /sys  /mnt/sys
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# chroot /mnt /bin/bash --login
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# locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
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# apt-get update
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# apt-get install ubuntu-minimal software-properties-common
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# apt-add-repository --yes ppa:zfs-native/stable
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# apt-add-repository --yes ppa:zfs-native/grub < - See below note on this command
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# apt-get update
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# apt-get install --no-install-recommends linux-image-generic linux-headers-generic
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# apt-get install ubuntu-zfs
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# apt-get install grub2-common grub-pc

Quick note on grub issues. During the install I had to create soft links since I could not figure out the grub-probe failures. From memory I think I created soft links as follow and purged grub2-common grub-pc and re-installed:

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/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419 >>>> /dev/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419
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/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part1 >>>> /dev/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part1
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/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part2 >>>> /dev/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419-part2

Update 5.6.14: After I had time to look at it closer I see my grub issues all came from the fact that there is no trusty grub ppa and the apt-add-repository command above is setting up a trusty repo. Quickest way to fix this is after the apt-add-repository –yes ppa:zfs-native/grub command fix the file manually to use raring. As follow:

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# more /etc/apt/sources.list.d/zfs-native-grub-trusty.list
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deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/zfs-native/grub/ubuntu raring main

Now ready to continue on.

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# apt-get install zfs-initramfs
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# apt-get dist-upgrade
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# passwd root

Step 6:

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# grub-probe /
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zfs
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# ls /boot/grub/i386-pc/zfs*
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/boot/grub/i386-pc/zfs.mod  /boot/grub/i386-pc/zfsinfo.mod
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# update-initramfs -c -k all
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update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic
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# grep "boot=zfs" /boot/grub/grub.cfg
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  linux  /ROOT/ubuntu-1@/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/ubuntu-1 ro  boot=zfs
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    linux  /ROOT/ubuntu-1@/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/ubuntu-1 ro  boot=zfs
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# grep zfs /etc/default/grub
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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="boot=zfs"
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# update-grub
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# grub-install $(readlink -f /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBb4fe25f7-8f14d419)
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Installation finished. No error reported.
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# exit

Step 7:

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# umount /mnt/boot/grub
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# umount /mnt/dev
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# umount /mnt/proc
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# umount /mnt/sys
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# zfs umount -a
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# zpool export rpool
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# reboot

Post First Reboot:
– Made a VB snapshot of course
– apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
** grub issues again so I remade the link again. Later fixed with the grub ppa repo pointing to raring instead.
– create a user
– install VB Guest Additions

TODO:
– Check into grub issue and having to create soft links. Something to do with grub not following soft links.