CLI method of adding and deleting a hard drive?

[sef]

Since the GUI doesn't allow me to do some of the things I'd like to do with ZFS, I have to consider ways of working around it. Unfortunately, it's not entirely clear to me how I do two basic things:

1: Add a hard drive to the system. By this, I mean partitioning it (although I think I have that figured out), and then adding it to the database(s) so that it shows up properly. (While I can simply add it to a zfs pool, that won't -- as far as I can tell by going through the scripts -- cause the swap partition to show up.)

2: Similarly, for removing a hard drive from the system. Again, I'm mostly concerned with the various databases that are maintained by the GUI.

Any pointers?

Thanks.

 

[William Grzybowski]

Care to explain what exactly GUI doesn't allow you to do?

1. Any GPT partition of type freebsd-swap will be added on boot time

2. This was true for 8.0.x, >= 8.2 the disk database is synced automatically and it do not reflect the state of the zpool anymore (except for encrypted zpool in 8.3.1)

 

[sef]

The GUI doesn't allow me to add an Nth disk to a mirror. I've file an enhancement request for that.

Are you sure about (1)? I looked over the code that is used to generate the fstab file, and it cycled through disks in a squlite database, rather than checking the system to see which disks are attached to it. I admit I have not tested this yet (as I am being very paranoid and careful :)), so I'll be glad to find out I'm wrong.

Thank you!

eta I should make it clear I'm running 8.3.0, sorry for not saying that earlier.

 

[William Grzybowski]

Understood.

Yes, I'm sure. There is a disk table but it is synced with the state of the system (contrary to 8.0.x that would be used to associate with a pool), think it as a cache and to hold disk information (SMART enabled?, APM, etc).
We loop through that table and search for a freebsd-swap partition type using GEOM XML.

Good luck.

 

[sef]

So, if I hot-add a disk drive, partition it to match the others, and attach it as a mirror to the existing pool (all via the command-line), then things will Just Work? Most excellent to hear! Thank you!

Perhaps I will go buy a hard drive this weekend to test it :).

 

[sef]

So, no, that didn't work.

I got another hard drive; hooked it up to the system; partitioned it manually, using

gpart create -s GPT ${DISK}
gpart add -s 4194304 -t freebsd-swap ${DISK}
gpart add -t freebsd-zfs -l a-name-i-could-remember ${DISK}

I attached it to one of the existing devices in the mirror, and ensured it was in fact resilvering.

Then I rebooted, and checked via "swapinfo -k". The new disk was not listed there.

 

[William Grzybowski]

Are you running -p1? Can you see the new disk in Volumes -> View Disk?

 

[sef]

You responded while I was rebooting and verifying :).

The problem was that the disk came with an MBR; my notes file had a commented out "# May need to do "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/${DISK} bs=1m count=25"" line, and so I forgot to do it.

After I detached the drive, did the dd, re-partitioned, and so forth, after I rebooted it, it was there in the swap list.

Thank you VERY much; you have been very helpful, and I am quite grateful.