[Solved]Install: Sabretooth 990FX, ZFS & dm-crypt as root. UEFI probs?

Zazzman · 2013-08-22 00:12:00

This is my first install using UEFI, so I'm not exactly sure what to expect, but I can gather that this isn't it.

The "Installing Archlinux on ZFS" page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … nux_on_ZFS

suggests using rEFInd as the bootloader, but I'm having terrible trouble getting the darn thing to take. One go round, GRUB came up from a previous install (great, I forgot to wipe that! Time to start over...) And the next, the UEFI menu doesn't seem to find rEFInd. Or the efivars just aren't available, even after I know I booted through UEFI...

Any help *there* would be greatly appreciated. I've been scrubbing the docs for days, booted the arch install disc repeatedly from the motherboard in UEFI-mode, only to find one problem after another with bootloaders. Do I have one of those cursed mobos where the spec will not correctly handle UEFI booting?

Does rEFInd have a way to detect that the rootFS is encrypted? Would simply passing the same arguments in refind.conf that I would in... Grub(?) do the same?

I came over from Funtoo where a separate program (bliss-initramfs) handled the initramfs, which took care of allowing me to unlock and mount my rootfs. So I really have no idea of what much of anything else is capable of anymore! That seemed to be sorta the only working solution at the time on that distro.

Does mkinitcpio effectively allow me to unlock an encrypted rootfs, then mount what's inside, even if it is a ZFS?

I'm terribly turned around, and I've been trying to scrub the docs for days, but simply find there's too many directions to turn about what's going on.

Last edited by Zazzman (2013-08-22 05:07:03)

Zazzman · 2013-08-22 05:09:21

First off:

I had mishandled some paths in rEFInd - whoops. Keep the paths consistent, and you'll be fine.

On mkinitcpio and cryptsetup / zfs - awesome! rEFInd WORKS it out of the box with the simplest args EVER!

If someone else is having trouble getting UEFI to boot on this mobo: go into your boot options, and select your OS. Yes, that's in the "advanced mode" menu. "Windows Compatibility Mode" will *DEMAND* that windows be present. "Other OS" Will allow things to do what they do.

Last edited by Zazzman (2013-08-22 05:11:17)

WonderWoofy · 2013-08-22 05:14:21

Just so you are prepared, ZFS is indeed awesome. But it also has the issue of not being a native kernel module. So you will have to be extremely careful when you update the kernel, as you will need to also ensure that the spl and zfs packages (and their respective tools) are updated as well. If you are using demizerone's repo, he does a pretty good job of making this work pretty well. But as a normal user, his updates are not necessarily completely in sync with the kernel. They are typically released fairly quickly after the kernel updates, but can sometimes take a day or two.

So be careful.

Zazzman · 2013-08-22 05:49:19

Thanks for the warning!

I intend to try to use Arch to mimic a source-based distro, where possible: funtoo wouldn't mesh well with gentoo's "layman" supplimentary repositories (such as for steam, octave, or R) and gentoo wouldn't present a workable solution for actually booting into a ZFS filesystem.

So, if I recompile the kernel every time, external modules included (and reinstall non-source modules, and zfs out of the AUR), I believe I'll be okay.

Worst comes to absolute worst, there is that install disc where I can boot in for an emergency, and clean up the eventual mess.

Dangit, the bootloader is having issues. it doesn't wanna load my zpool, even after I open up the luks partition "vault".

WonderWoofy · 2013-08-22 06:07:30

I don't know about your bootloader issues, but doesn't ZFS have the ability to encrypt itself? Or is that feature not yet ported to Linux? I could have sworn it was...

Anyway, you should know that in the past at least, there have been some circular dependency issues with updating the zfs packages. I think that the easiest way around this is to build in a clean chroot. You could probably achieve this with the Arch Linux devtools package if you want easy. Or if you want to do it manually, you can simply install base-devel and use it to chroot into. For a clean chroot, apparently base is not required.

Zazzman · 2013-08-22 06:22:15

the fakeroot package is WONDERFUL for that! Especially on a tmpfs mounted in ram.

Naw, that feature isn't ported over yet. We're not on version 1 yet, but 0.6.1 (usually r3, distro depending). Oracle has been rather slow about cannibalizing Solaris into usable Linux components, business models and JVM security holes being what they are.

I've moved on from rEFInd errors to mkinitcpio config errors

Progress is progress, I guess.

Just set the bootfs flag on zroot. That didn't fix it

Arch Linux

#1 2013-08-22 00:12:00

[Solved]Install: Sabretooth 990FX, ZFS & dm-crypt as root. UEFI probs?

#2 2013-08-22 05:09:21

Re: [Solved]Install: Sabretooth 990FX, ZFS & dm-crypt as root. UEFI probs?

#3 2013-08-22 05:14:21

Re: [Solved]Install: Sabretooth 990FX, ZFS & dm-crypt as root. UEFI probs?

#4 2013-08-22 05:49:19

Re: [Solved]Install: Sabretooth 990FX, ZFS & dm-crypt as root. UEFI probs?

#5 2013-08-22 06:07:30

Re: [Solved]Install: Sabretooth 990FX, ZFS & dm-crypt as root. UEFI probs?

#6 2013-08-22 06:22:15

Re: [Solved]Install: Sabretooth 990FX, ZFS & dm-crypt as root. UEFI probs?

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