[OpenIndiana-discuss] More N40L fun :-(

[Jim Klimov]

On 2013-02-01 17:09, Reginald Beardsley wrote:
> I labeled the disks using the OI_151a7 text installer shell which doesn't allow me to specify a starting sector, just a starting cylinder.

I think I used the command-line parted to pre-label the partitions
when I was concerned about this on my home NAS (hand-made box), and
then allowed the installer to use the whole partition - with the
alignment I deemed correct. At least, I didn't ever see the errors
and messages you've just quoted ;)

>
> echo ::sd_state | mdb -k
>
> reports blocksizes
>
>      un_sys_blocksize = 0x200
>      un_tgt_blocksize = 0x200
>      un_phy_blocksize = 0x1000
>
> zdb rpool | egrep ashift
>
> produces
>
> "zdb: can't open 'rpool': no such file or directory"
>
> The latter seems very strange given that I have imported the pool and can list the filesystem.

You can also try to ZDB the pool components' labels, i.e.
# zdb -l c0t0d0s0

Also you can use "-e GUID" to enforce inspection of a pool found
by its GUID (which you can infer from the labels or from the
"zpool status" listing).

Interestingly, just "zdb" with no params dumps the labels of all
imported pools for me on several hosts of varying OS revisions,
including sol10u8, sxce 117 and oi 151a7.

> Memtest reports the memory is fine.

Is it possible that the DIMM was inserted somehow incorrectly, i.e. the
clip did not click? Another thing I'd look at is mismatch of memory
module speeds (clock, latency, etc.), chip bitness (amount of chips
on the module, basically) and other such asymmetrical mismatches to
your other modules.

> There is a bit of annoyance that the BIOS on the N40L keeps resetting the boot order in seemingly random fashion if I plug or unplug a USB DVD drive.

Similar for my notebook, which for emergency purposes I booted from
a USB HDD - not so much the boot order, but that this also seems to
renumber storage controllers, possibly leading to my problems with
SATA for OI on this laptop. However, with your complaints on a boot
speed from CD - consider a USB image on flash or HDD (the latter is
tricky however, and I'm not sure I can explain well how I did it,
though I "logged" the setup on the mailing lists back in Aug/Sep).

> If I do a text install of OI_151a7, then mount the LiveCD .zlib filesystems, can I rsync the text installed image to be the LiveCD install image?  It would help a lot if there was an explanation of how the installers worked rather than forcing the user to do a forensic analysis.

Well, from evidence and confirmed hypotheses, for many people it
just works to rsync the running OS from a booted LiveCD onto an
rpool created manually - along the lines of my Wiki page on these
manual installs. There are some post-installation customizations
which differentiate a Live image from an installed one, i.e. the
set of alternate SMF services to mount one or another "fs/root",
user accounts, network/naming config and so on, but I think many
or all of these can be done on the installed system after a reboot.

In particular, the possibility of adding unsupported-by-default
storage/net drivers into the live booted environment and then
having the installer carry them over onto HDD does confirm that
it copies the live environment and not the default .zlib contents.

I do agree that an advanced installer (text or AI) on the GUI
media image, for those advanced users or ones with special needs
like us, would be useful. Perhaps just a stub one that would only
basically wrap the proper copying and then customization of the
live image to a given dataset of the user's choice would indeed
be super-useful for custom installations (like into old rpools
or new ones tailored to a specific layout).

IIRC the old (pre-Caiman) Solaris installer was a series of scripts
and programs that requested installation set and configuration data
from the users, and ultimately fed these inputs to a separate install
program - and these feeds could also come from jumpstart profiles
and such. I can't exclude that similar logic exists in Caiman i.e.
for the Automated Installer function, but I don't know any more to
elaborate on this.

//Jim