• FreeBSD & Slackware shared ZFS partition?

    From David Chmelik@21:1/5 to All on Wed May 13 08:10:22 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    Are there any basic/simple tutorials/HOWTOs that might help setup shared
    ZFS partition for FreeBSD & Slackware (current verisons of each)?

    All I've seen is extremely complicated texts for extra-advanced usage. I
    wish it was as simple as newfs/mkfs. All I need is journalling; not 100
    fancy ZFS features (no compression; no snapshots, etc.)

    I tried it years ago, but things have changed... last time I had to
    research weeks/months, get help for hours, and it was an hours/days
    project just to learn and install (trial & error)... after a few tries,
    had to make ZFS on Slackware first (wouldn't work vice-versa) then setup
    to use the set features on FreeBSD. If I recall correctly (IIRC) it
    involved scrolling through a list of maybe 100 feature sets both
    supported, then using the intersection.

    It's like building & running your own filesystem (fs) OS in each; wish
    it'd be simple enough to use with the given fs tools rather than running
    an entire additional software for fs. But as long as *BSD & GNU/Linux
    only have experimental (unsafe) write support of other's fs (UFS, EXT4)
    ZFS is the only option?

    Are list.freebsd.questions,mailing.freebsd.questions, etc., no longer
    part of Usenet?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Grant Taylor@21:1/5 to David Chmelik on Wed May 13 14:58:49 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On 5/13/20 2:10 AM, David Chmelik wrote:
    Are there any basic/simple tutorials/HOWTOs that might help setup
    shared ZFS partition for FreeBSD & Slackware (current verisons
    of each)?

    First, what do you mean by "shared storage"?

    Do you mean concurrent access, like a clustered file system?

    Or simply a single block device / file system that each can access when
    booted one at a time?

    All I've seen is extremely complicated texts for extra-advanced
    usage. I wish it was as simple as newfs/mkfs. All I need is
    journalling; not 100 fancy ZFS features (no compression; no snapshots,
    etc.)

    Second, ZFS is not simply a file system. It is a file system, volume management, RAID, and many more things.

    Third, perhaps ZFS isn't the best choice for what you want.

    To whit, what do you want to do? What is your use case? (Please
    describe independent of any possible solution.)

    I tried it years ago, but things have changed... last time I had to
    research weeks/months, get help for hours, and it was an hours/days
    project just to learn and install (trial & error)... after a few
    tries, had to make ZFS on Slackware first (wouldn't work vice-versa)
    then setup to use the set features on FreeBSD. If I recall correctly
    (IIRC) it involved scrolling through a list of maybe 100 feature sets
    both supported, then using the intersection.

    Depending how many years ago you're talking about, the state of ZFS on
    Linux, and possibly FreeBSD, was significantly different than it is now.
    ZFS is a relatively new file system for Linux. As such, it's short
    history (on Linux) has seen a LOT of change.

    I think I've read that FreeBSD now uses ZFS on Linux as it's source of
    ZFS. (This may be because FreeBSD ZFS efforts were pushed back into ZFS
    on Linux and joint community development is happening there now.)

    I am not at all surprised that you needed to use limit your ZFS pool to features that both operating systems support.

    It's like building & running your own filesystem (fs) OS in each;
    wish it'd be simple enough to use with the given fs tools rather than
    running an entire additional software for fs. But as long as *BSD & GNU/Linux only have experimental (unsafe) write support of other's fs
    (UFS, EXT4) ZFS is the only option?

    I doubt that ZFS is the only option.

    I would bet that both FreeBSD and Linux both support FAT-12 / FAT-16 /
    FAT-32. ;-) But perhaps they won't do what you want.

    I'd be somewhat surprised if FreeBSD can't read and write to NTFS. As
    such, I expect that to be another option.

    As previously stated, ZFS is it's own entirely different thing. This
    means that none of the traditional tools work with ZFS. Just like none
    of the traditional tools worked when TCP/IP was introduced to Unixes in
    the '70s and '80s.

    Are list.freebsd.questions,mailing.freebsd.questions, etc., no longer
    part of Usenet?

    I don't recognize them. I don't see them in my server's active file.



    --
    Grant. . . .
    unix || die

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From John D Groenveld@21:1/5 to dchmelik@gmail.com on Wed May 13 21:35:41 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    In article <r9ga1e$epk$2@dont-email.me>,
    David Chmelik <dchmelik@gmail.com> wrote:
    I tried it years ago, but things have changed... last time I had to
    research weeks/months, get help for hours, and it was an hours/days
    project just to learn and install (trial & error)... after a few tries,
    had to make ZFS on Slackware first (wouldn't work vice-versa) then setup
    to use the set features on FreeBSD. If I recall correctly (IIRC) it
    involved scrolling through a list of maybe 100 feature sets both
    supported, then using the intersection.

    Look at the -d option to zpool create to disable all features: <URL:https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=zpool&manpath=FreeBSD+8.4-RELEASE>

    FreeBSD and Void Linux were able to import the pool.
    John
    groenveld@acm.org

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From DaveG@21:1/5 to David Chmelik on Thu May 14 00:44:58 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On Wed, 13 May 2020 08:10:22 +0000, David Chmelik wrote:

    Are list.freebsd.questions,mailing.freebsd.questions, etc., no longer part
    of Usenet?

    The mailing lists and their archives still exits and are living.
    I have no idea if anyone is running them through a mail to
    usenet gateway though.

    A quick query on your search engine of choice would have found

    https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions

    which has a link on the page to the archive.

    If you want to do it through usenet, see if gmane carries the
    lists and if so, add the gmane server to your newsreader.



    --
    ad astra tabernamque

    Don't feed the trolls. You might catch something nasty.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris Elvidge@21:1/5 to DaveG on Thu May 14 10:43:58 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On 14/05/2020 01:44 am, DaveG wrote:
    On Wed, 13 May 2020 08:10:22 +0000, David Chmelik wrote:

    Are list.freebsd.questions,mailing.freebsd.questions, etc., no longer part >> of Usenet?

    The mailing lists and their archives still exits and are living.
    I have no idea if anyone is running them through a mail to
    usenet gateway though.

    A quick query on your search engine of choice would have found

    https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions

    which has a link on the page to the archive.

    If you want to do it through usenet, see if gmane carries the
    lists and if so, add the gmane server to your newsreader.




    Eternal September carries:
    fa.freebsd.questions
    list.freebsd.questions
    lucky.freebsd.questions
    lucky.freebsd.questions.digest
    mailing.freebsd.questions
    muc.lists.freebsd.questions



    --

    Chris Elvidge, England

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From David Chmelik@21:1/5 to David Chmelik on Fri May 15 02:13:12 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On Wed, 13 May 2020 14:58:49 -0600, Grant Taylor wrote:
    On 5/13/20 2:10 AM, David Chmelik wrote:
    On 5/13/20 2:10 AM, David Chmelik wrote:
    Are there any basic/simple tutorials/HOWTOs that might help setup
    shared ZFS partition for FreeBSD & Slackware (current verisons of
    each)?

    [...] Do you mean concurrent access, like a clustered file system?

    Don't know what that is. Not concurrent.

    Or simply a single block device / file system that each can access when booted one at a time?

    Yes.

    [...] To whit, what do you want to do? What is your use case? (Please describe independent of any possible solution.)

    My own (single-user) PC/workstation dual-boot, as programmer/scientist
    also doing more 'user' things: access my user-type data (/home,) that mostly/all doesn't affect running operating system (OS) distribution
    (distro) or graphical user interface (GUI, at least not pure command-
    line, which I boot to)... in case might affect GUI (as for command-line: already configured shells separately or to work fine... isn't a big
    deal, as can boot recovery discs or universal serial bus, USB, flash
    drives) I have backups and eventually would mainly/only use GUI only on
    one OS; other only to learn/program/develop in (command-line only) regularly/occasionally. Eventually I'd mainly use one (leaning to *BSD
    which I started with in college and only switched for drivers 15+ years
    ago for hardware I no longer use) then later maybe run other in Xen or
    setup (not for security) like QubesOS (lets you run programs in emulator/ virtual-machine (emu/VM) main (host) OS' X/etc. from GUI of OS installed (guest) inside main, without being inset in emu/VM window... just X
    window, not requiring press to select in & out)... sadly that didn't
    become popular at all for other distros, because apparently not so many
    people want to do many things from various OSes right in one as if same
    GUI/X server.

    Of course, I'm not going to run QubesOS for that, as any GNU/Linux newer
    than Slackware has problems for me: GUI-boot (sometimes with critical
    bugs when altered to boot command-line,) systemd, dependency Hell, configuration of (sort of as sometimes said) 'giving the user more rope
    than they need to hang themselves,' etc., i.e., no longer strictly Unix[-
    like] (more inspired by Apple/Windows.)

    [...] > [...]

    I think I've read that FreeBSD now uses ZFS on Linux as it's source of
    ZFS. (This may be because FreeBSD ZFS efforts were pushed back into ZFS
    on Linux and joint community development is happening there now.)

    I know they plan to but apparently don't seem to yet. It might make
    things easier.

    [...] >> [...] > [...]

    I would bet that both FreeBSD and Linux both support FAT-12 / FAT-16 / FAT-32. ;-) But perhaps they won't do what you want.

    This isn't 1990; I mentioned journalling...!

    I'd be somewhat surprised if FreeBSD can't read and write to NTFS. As
    such, I expect that to be another option.

    I wouldn't say so; obvious? Different file-name characters (also causing critical shell problems; ) no user/permission information (so probably
    also harder to do backups & restores right,) maybe poor/no journalling,
    etc. It'd be an absolute, horrible, unusable mess!

    [...] >> [...] > [...]

    Maybe I used a few other default ZFS features (other than excluding compression, because I want to be able to directly look into fs, and
    excluding snapshots: space issue) but don't recall. Every similar fs
    either starts using, the other team(s) mostly doesn't seem enthusiastic
    about. In the past, *BSD had XFS, which apparently only was to attract GNU/Linux users then remove XFS; *BSD doesn't want BTRFS either; the
    Linux kernel is probably stuck on old versions of UFS/FFS still even read-
    only (safely... same with Unix and EXT*)... I don't know about
    alternatives or any new fs. Just last time, after some advice, it was concluded ZFS was only option (should've been obvious.) I wonder if any
    fs are part of POSIX standard or are either/all team(s) just don't want
    to adhere to it as much as I thought...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Henrik Carlqvist@21:1/5 to David Chmelik on Fri May 15 06:05:09 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On Fri, 15 May 2020 02:13:12 +0000, David Chmelik wrote:
    Are there any basic/simple tutorials/HOWTOs that might help setup
    shared ZFS partition for FreeBSD & Slackware (current verisons of
    each)?

    [...] Do you mean concurrent access, like a clustered file system?

    Don't know what that is. Not concurrent.

    There are file systems like ocfs2 which allows two or more machines at
    the same time to have the same file system mounted. Of course you will
    then also need hardware which allows this like a SCSI bus with two
    different controllers in separate machines or firbre channel.

    Another way to accomplish part of the same thing is to have some
    networked file system like NFS and I think that NFS would be useful for
    you as it is well supported in both Slackware and FreeBSD.

    My own (single-user) PC/workstation dual-boot, as programmer/scientist
    also doing more 'user' things: access my user-type data (/home,) that mostly/all doesn't affect running operating system (OS) distribution...

    In lack of other common supported file system with journaling, why not
    simply put your /home on an NFS server like a NAS or other unix server in
    your network? On that server you can have features like journaling, RAID, snapshots or whatever you want. The important thing is that NFS is a well supported file system on all your clients.

    regards Henrik

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jens Schweikhardt@21:1/5 to All on Sat May 16 12:32:39 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    In comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc David Chmelik <dchmelik@gmail.com> wrote:
    ...
    # I wonder if any fs is part of the POSIX standard

    No, file systems are not in the scope of POSIX.

    Regards,

    Jens
    --
    Jens Schweikhardt http://www.schweikhardt.net/
    SIGSIG -- signature too long (core dumped)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From tom@21:1/5 to David Chmelik on Sun May 17 12:21:11 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On Wed, 13 May 2020 08:10:22 -0000 (UTC)
    David Chmelik <dchmelik@gmail.com> wrote:

    Are there any basic/simple tutorials/HOWTOs that might help setup
    shared ZFS partition for FreeBSD & Slackware (current verisons of
    each)?

    All I've seen is extremely complicated texts for extra-advanced
    usage. I wish it was as simple as newfs/mkfs. All I need is
    journalling; not 100 fancy ZFS features (no compression; no
    snapshots, etc.)

    I tried it years ago, but things have changed... last time I had to
    research weeks/months, get help for hours, and it was an hours/days
    project just to learn and install (trial & error)... after a few
    tries, had to make ZFS on Slackware first (wouldn't work vice-versa)
    then setup to use the set features on FreeBSD. If I recall correctly
    (IIRC) it involved scrolling through a list of maybe 100 feature sets
    both supported, then using the intersection.

    It's like building & running your own filesystem (fs) OS in each;
    wish it'd be simple enough to use with the given fs tools rather than
    running an entire additional software for fs. But as long as *BSD & GNU/Linux only have experimental (unsafe) write support of other's fs
    (UFS, EXT4) ZFS is the only option?

    Are list.freebsd.questions,mailing.freebsd.questions, etc., no longer
    part of Usenet?

    Hi,

    I think your going about it wrong. You don't store separate
    operating systems in the same ZFS, but a separate ZFS within in same
    ZPOOL. For example, your z filesystems should look something like this:
    zpool
    zpool:ROOT
    zpool:ROOT:slackware141
    zpool:ROOT:slackware142
    zpool:ROOT:freebsd12
    zpool:ROOT:beowulf
    zpool:home
    zpool:home:jdoe
    zpool:home:alice
    zpool:randomjunk

    btw, zpool:ROOT should be marked non-mountable. In this configuration
    you just select with a zfs-capable bootloader which zfs to mount as
    your root filesystem, and then you can share home directories and other datasets between the operating systems. It also allows you to rollback
    any botched operating system upgrade and such. As for how compatible
    ZFSonLinux and freebsd's zfs is I'm not sure and you'll have to test
    for yourself.
    --
    _________________________________________
    / It is indeed desirable to be well \
    | descended, but the glory belongs to our |
    | ancestors. |
    | |
    \ -- Plutarch /
    -----------------------------------------
    \
    \
    /\ /\
    //\\_//\\ ____
    \_ _/ / /
    / * * \ /^^^]
    \_\O/_/ [ ]
    / \_ [ /
    \ \_ / /
    [ [ / \/ _/
    _[ [ \ /_/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From David Chmelik@21:1/5 to tom on Tue May 19 04:10:35 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On Sun, 17 May 2020 12:21:11 -0700, tom wrote:

    On Wed, 13 May 2020 08:10:22 -0000 (UTC)
    David Chmelik <dchmelik@gmail.com> wrote:

    Are there any basic/simple tutorials/HOWTOs that might help setup
    shared ZFS partition for FreeBSD & Slackware (current verisons of
    each)? [...]

    [...] I think your going about it wrong. You don't store separate
    operating systems in the same ZFS, but a separate ZFS within in same
    ZPOOL. For example, your z filesystems should look something like this:
    zpool zpool:ROOT zpool:ROOT:slackware141 zpool:ROOT:slackware142 zpool:ROOT:freebsd12 zpool:ROOT:beowulf zpool:home zpool:home:jdoe zpool:home:alice zpool:randomjunk

    That does not really have to do with what I asked. Never said I'm
    storing operating systems in ZFS; only a partition (user data,)
    independent of those.


    btw, zpool:ROOT should be marked non-mountable. In this configuration
    you just select with a zfs-capable bootloader which zfs to mount as your
    root filesystem, and then you can share home directories and other
    datasets between the operating systems. It also allows you to rollback
    any botched operating system upgrade and such. As for how compatible ZFSonLinux and freebsd's zfs is I'm not sure and you'll have to test for yourself.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From David Chmelik@21:1/5 to Henrik Carlqvist on Tue May 19 06:09:22 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On Fri, 15 May 2020 06:05:09 +0000, Henrik Carlqvist wrote:

    In lack of other common supported file system with journaling, why not
    simply put your /home on an NFS server like a NAS or other unix server
    in your network? [...]

    The common fs is ZFS; would rather learn that software than hardware that
    will just make things even more complicated (absolutely not considering
    ever not having my /home not in my PC.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From David Chmelik@21:1/5 to Chris Elvidge on Thu May 21 06:40:09 2020
    XPost: alt.os.linux.slackware

    On Thu, 14 May 2020 10:43:58 +0100, Chris Elvidge wrote:
    On 14/05/2020 01:44 am, DaveG wrote:
    On Wed, 13 May 2020 08:10:22 +0000, David Chmelik wrote:

    Are list.freebsd.questions,mailing.freebsd.questions, etc., no longer
    part of Usenet?

    The mailing lists and their archives still exits and are living.
    I have no idea if anyone is running them through a mail to usenet
    gateway though.

    [...] If you want to do it through usenet, see if gmane carries the
    lists and if so, add the gmane server to your newsreader.

    Yes; well, I'm half-asking FreeBSD newsgroups; half-asking alt.os.linux.slackware (so can't use Gmane) because my original question
    (not in this sub-thread) relates to dual-booting. Posts to list.* and/or mailing.* never appear... maybe they're moderated, but I'm not a mailing-
    list member?

    Eternal September carries: fa.freebsd.questions list.freebsd.questions lucky.freebsd.questions lucky.freebsd.questions.digest mailing.freebsd.questions muc.lists.freebsd.questions

    Apparently so, and list.freebsd-questions (I don't know what fa.*, muc.*
    (or some others you mentioned; might be Solaris) might be; I don't use those)... just my posts are never showing up for such FreeBSD newsgroups;
    only comp.*...

    I kind of want to restart the thread because I have new use cases now,
    and it only really ever diverged to other topics like typical off-topic alternative/unwanted suggestions, and discussion areas (though this sub-
    thread is helpful) and one later case someone replied without reading any earlier discussion, and again (surprisingly, because there are more PCs
    than servers now, and not surprisingly, because of specific OSes) assumed
    this was a server expert's question rather than workstation PC programmer
    who forgot everything about ZFS.

    So I wrote an updated post to start over (with more clarification of the beginning what I really want to do soon/next and what I don't know.)
    This time it didn't say Eternal-September.org (ES) didn't have lists.* & mailing.*, just didn't show up at all. I also tried aioe.org, which has three-newsgroup-crosspost limit, but I'd guess either the FreeBSD Usenet
    <-> listserv connection has ended or the moderators don't want questions
    about dual-booting, at least from non-members. If that's the case, I
    wish I could just get an invitation/verification email like you commonly/ mostly get on Gmane groups/listservs...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)