debian-stretch-zfs-root

Installs Debian GNU/Linux 9 Stretch to a native ZFS root filesystem using a Debian Stretch Live CD. The resulting system is a fully updateable debian system with no quirks or workarounds.

(For the brave at heart, there also is Debian 10 Buster ZFS root beta available)

Usage

1. Boot Stretch Live CD
2. Login (user: user, password: live) and become root
3. Setup network and export http_proxy environment variable (if needed)
4. Run this script
5. User interface: Select disks and RAID level
6. User interface: Decide if you want Legacy BIOS or EFI boot (only if your hardware supports EFI)
7. Let the installer do the work
8. User interface: install grub to all disks participating in the array (only if you're using Legacy BIOS boot)
9. User interface: enter root password and select timezone
10. Reboot
11. Star this repository :)

Fixes included

• grub (v2.02, included in Debian 9), especially grub-probe, does not support all ZFS features and subsequently refuses to install. This script disables feature@hole_birth and feature@embedded_data (and you must not enable those features after installation).
• Some mountpoints, notably /var, need to be mounted via fstab as the ZFS mount script runs too late during boot.
• The EFI System Partition (ESP) is a single point of failure on one disk, this is arguably a mis-design in the UEFI specification. This script installs an ESP partition to every RAID disk, accompanied with a corresponding EFI boot menu.

Bugs

• grub-install sometimes mysteriously fails for disk numbers >= 4 (grub-install: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/disk/by-id/...).

Credits

• https://github.com/hn/debian-jessie-zfs-root
• https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-16.04-Root-on-ZFS
• https://janvrany.github.io/2016/10/fun-with-zfs-part-1-installing-debian-jessie-on-zfs-root.html