[oi-dev] GPT Partitioning for Illumos/Solaris

[Atiq Rahman]

Adjusted some partitions to create space and added an 8MB Solaris reserved
partition at the end, resulting in the final partition table:

12      2000390832      2000407215   8.0 MiB     BF07  solaris_reserved



On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 3:16 PM Atiq Rahman <atiqcx at gmail.com> wrote:

> Here's my partition table rice. Folks who are not used to multi-boots,
> look away! :)
>
> ```
> $ sudo parted /dev/nvme0n1 print
> Model: MTFDKBA1T0QFM-1BD1AABGB (nvme)
> Partition Table: gpt
> Disk Flags:
>
> Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                   Flags
>  1      1049kB  538MB   537MB   fat32        EFI System Partition   boot,
> esp
>  2      538MB   138GB   137GB                   illumos
>  3      138GB   275GB   137GB                   illum data
>  4      275GB   344GB   68.7GB  zfs           pop_os
>  5      344GB   482GB   137GB   zfs           pop data
>  6      482GB   886GB   404GB   zfs           data_buffer_future
>  7      886GB   886GB   33.6MB                 MSFT Res.           msftres
>  8      886GB   1023GB  137GB                 Win Main
> msftdata
>  9      1023GB  1024GB  805MB                Win Rec. Env.       diag
> ```
>
> with partition type codes,
>
> ```
> $ sudo sgdisk --print /dev/nvme0n1 print
> Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 2000409264 sectors, 953.9 GiB
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
> Disk identifier (GUID): AE0E738B-0C1E-459A-975A-F330D0B30680
> Partition table holds up to 128 entries
> Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
> First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 2000409230
> Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
> Total free space is 4029 sectors (2.0 MiB)
>
> Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
>    1            2048         1050623   512.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System
> Partition
>    2         1050624       269486079   128.0 GiB      BF00   illumos
>    3       269486080       537921535   128.0 GiB    BF05   illum data
>    4       537921536       672139263   64.0 GiB      A504   pop_os
>    5       672139264       940574719   128.0 GiB    BF01   pop data
>    6       940574720      1730334719   376.6 GiB   BF01
>  data_buffer_future
>    7      1730334720      1730400255   32.0 MiB    0C01   MSFT Res.
>    8      1730400256      1998835711   128.0 GiB   0700   Win Main
>    9      1998835712      2000407215   767.3 MiB   2700   Win Rec. Env.
> ```
>
> Cheers!
>
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 2:21 PM Atiq Rahman <atiqcx at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > but only boots linux kernels
>> heard void linux maintains ZFS Boot Menu. And they only support linux
>> kernels (vmlinuz) for now, sadly!
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 23, 2025 at 5:35 PM Eric J Bowman <mellowmutt at zoho.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I have ZFS Boot Menu in my 'standard' rEFInd+ options (I also launch it
>>> from netboot.xyz), but oddly it doesn't see cachyos, but does see
>>> GhostBSD (not illumos ZFS tho) but only boots linux kernels. While I think
>>> it suffers from feature creep, I like it in concept. So I've stripped down
>>> a FreeBSD kernel, to basically give me beadm and the ability to boot
>>> multiple illumos/FreeBSD installs on the same drive, but what I'm driving
>>> at is using illumos kernel (as EFI app on FAT32) because the fastboot
>>> facility (not to be confused with FreeBSD fastboot) allows me to access
>>> bootable partitions after the NVMe driver loads -- this allows me to run
>>> NVMe in a PCIe slot on older systems without firmware NVMe support, BIOS or
>>> UEFI, and illumos fastboot can load any multiboot2-compliant kernel...
>>> supposedly.
>>>
>>> -Eric
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---- On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 09:33:19 -0700 *Atiq Rahman <atiqcx at gmail.com
>>> <atiqcx at gmail.com>>* wrote ---
>>>
>>> > That's the gist of multiboot on UEFI, more work if you want more than
>>> one illumos or freebsd partition, but they will coexist peacefully.
>>>
>>> Have any of you ever tried the ZFS Boot Menu? I heard good things about
>>> it, thinking of trying it.
>>>
>>> Best!
>>>
>>> Atiq
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2025 at 8:25 PM Eric J Bowman <mellowmutt at zoho.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> >
>>> > parted > mkpart illumos 767GB 100%
>>> >
>>> > and then set the partition type to solaris launching,
>>> >
>>> > $ sudo gdisk /dev/nvme0n1
>>> >
>>> > (set the GUID to "6A85CF4D-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631" )
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>> The "Solaris Root" partition type is relevant to UFS, not ZFS. On UEFI,
>>> set s0/p1 to be an ESP, "boot, hidden, esp" flags and format it fat32, your
>>> "Solaris Reserved" should be s8/p9, 8Mib, -1MiB from end of disk. Your ZFS
>>> partition should be set to ZFS for illumos, FreeBSD ZFS for freebsd. Being
>>> bootable is a property of the ZFS filesystem, not its partition.
>>>
>>> /EFI
>>> /EFI/OpenIndiana/bootx64.efi (copy of loader.efi)
>>> /EFI/boot
>>>
>>> I put rEFInd Plus in /EFI/boot, with a backup of its bootx64.efi in case
>>> it gets overwritten.
>>>
>>> /EFI/boot/drivers/x64_zfs.efi
>>>
>>> This driver will allow rEFInd to stub-load loader64.efi from your ZFS
>>> partition on most firmware, some will still need the
>>> /EFI/OpenIndiana/bootx64.efi. I don't know if the string "OpenIndiana" is
>>> registered, this one is:
>>>
>>> /EFI/FreeBSD
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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