# is freebsd installation on ZFS possible?



## Cronist (Nov 16, 2008)

we know that freebsd is supporting ZFS on FreeBSD 7.X. but there is no support on at the installation. is there any good news about it?

and also what about oracle support? is there any development about it?


----------



## ian_cammarata (Nov 16, 2008)

Cronist said:
			
		

> also what about oracle support? is there any development about it?



I don't know if there's any development going on to provide a native copy for BSD, but I've been told that it runs just fine using the Linux ABI compatibility.


----------



## trasz@ (Nov 16, 2008)

Yes, it is possible to have your root filesystem on ZFS, as described here: http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSOnRoot.  However, it's not yet possible to do this from the installer.


----------



## danger@ (Nov 16, 2008)

However note, that PC-BSD supports ZFS installation directly from the installation software...


----------



## schweikh@ (Nov 16, 2008)

Cronist said:
			
		

> we know that freebsd is supporting ZFS on FreeBSD 7.X. but there is no support on at the installation. is there any good news about it?



Keep in mind that a system that lives completely (i.e. including the root partition) in a ZFS would need to be supported by the loader(8) or boot manager. IIRC no such support exists at this time.

The usual way of creating a ZFS system is with a small root partition containing a UFS2 file system. Then you are free to use any file system for the remaining partitions. E.g. that's how I install my systems using gvinum partitions (which sysinstall, grub and its ilk don't support either).

If you have enough disk space for a second system, you could try the approach I have described in my article FreeBSD from Scratch, see http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/fbsd-from-scratch/article.html
This makes it easy to play around with a new system without touching anything on your current.

Regards, Jens


----------



## hedwards (Nov 16, 2008)

I used these instructions:
http://www.ish.com.au/solutions/articles/freebsdzfs

Things went pretty smoothly once I figured out what I was all doing. You do still need to have a small non-ZFS partition on which to store the boot directory, but it works pretty well.


----------



## ken (Nov 16, 2008)

trasz@ said:
			
		

> Yes, it is possible to have your root filesystem on ZFS, as described here: http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSOnRoot.  However, it's not yet possible to do this from the installer.



Please correct me if I'm in error but this is still "experimental" status, no?  If OP *needs* ZFS boot on production box, they may want to take a peek at Solaris 10, Update 6, wh/was recently released and offers officially supported ZFS root by Sun (or other OpenSolaris based distro).  Sun MFC'ing to their production OS and enterprise support is a pretty strong indication that it's ready for prime time...§e


----------



## felix (Nov 16, 2008)

hedwards said:
			
		

> I used these instructions:
> http://www.ish.com.au/solutions/articles/freebsdzfs


Checked, this is my work, too!


----------



## JBapt (Nov 16, 2008)

Bare in mind that its not production ready. Also make sure you have more than 1GB of memory to keep it running smooth. It tends to be memory hungry.


----------



## kingping (Nov 16, 2008)

Oops wrong thread, sorry.


----------



## ninjaslim (Nov 17, 2008)

Oracle works fine using the Linux ABI layer, and posts from the Oracle forum suggest that this is the best option.  The people at Oracle don't feel the need to port it over because it works rather well.


----------



## hedwards (Nov 17, 2008)

felix said:
			
		

> Checked, this is my work, too!


Thanks then. It's probably one of the most straight through how-tos I've seen in a while. But that being said I look forward to the porting work being done and being able to dust bin it.


----------



## surferwl (Nov 17, 2008)

yes,you can!x(


----------



## rink@ (Nov 17, 2008)

We run Oracle in production at work on FreeBSD 6.x, and it works fine as long as you apply the patch in kern/102956. We're currently about to install Oracle on a 7.x box, but no results as of yet 

And FWIW, http://rink.nu/entry.php?id=105 contains instructions about how to install FreeBSD on ELI-encrypted ZFS. I use this to keep my laptop secure, and it works amazingly well.


----------



## sT4k3 (Nov 24, 2008)

rink@ said:
			
		

> We run Oracle in production at work on FreeBSD 6.x, and it works fine as long as you apply the patch in kern/102956. We're currently about to install Oracle on a 7.x box, but no results as of yet
> 
> And FWIW, http://rink.nu/entry.php?id=105 contains instructions about how to install FreeBSD on ELI-encrypted ZFS. I use this to keep my laptop secure, and it works amazingly well.



What version oracle you use and where read about install oracle on freebsd?
ps sorry for my eng ))


----------

