[OpenIndiana-discuss] Updates in OI

[Lou Picciano]

> On May 4, 2021, at 12:57 PM, Judah Richardson <judahrichardson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 8:51 AM Toomas Soome via openindiana-discuss <
> openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org> wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> On 4. May 2021, at 16:27, Dave Miner <dave.miner at oracle.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 5/4/2021 8:59 AM, Yassine Chaouche wrote:
>>>> Le 5/4/21 à 1:43 PM, Stephan Althaus a écrit :
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hello!
>>>>> 
>>>>> We have "Boot environments"
>>>>> 
>>>>> On every "pkg update" you get a new BE that will be used on next
>> reboot.
>>>> 
>>>> This is just
>>>> 
>>> ...
>>>> Is this done by issuing a ZFS snapshot of the whole root partition ? or
>>>> is it more granular ?
>>>> 
>>>> If this is done via snapshots, this means writing to an evergrowing
>> file
>>>> on disk until the snapshot is removed. So the longer you keep a
>> snapshot,
>>>> the bigger the file gets.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes, boot environments in the OpenSolaris-derived OS's are implemented
>> using ZFS snapshots/clones of the root datasets.  Combined with IPS's
>> optimizations to only update objects that have changed between package
>> versions, you may find that boot environments for an update may not be
>> nearly as large as the initial installation; it all depends on how much has
>> changed.  Reclaiming space is as simple as deleting older boot environments
>> when they're no longer needed.  It's not at all unusual for a system to
>> have a dozen or more boot environments; some of the more masochistic among
>> us used to have systems with 100 or more.
>>> 
>>> Dave
>>> 
>> 
>> With old grub, the number is limited to 50 - 60 becsuse of memory setup.
>> With loader, I did demo with 600, but since loader is using sliding window,
>> the number of BE’s is not limited there.
>> 
> Is there ever a situation in which the disk can run out of space due to too
> many BEs? And if so, how does one go about automatically pruning
> old/unwanted BEs?

I’m sure your root pool could eventually be strained to ‘max’ by installed BEs (though I imagine you’d be well-aware of this approaching limit as the new update(?) BE is being built.)

As to automation: I myself don’t automate deletions (of older BEs), but make it a matter of ‘good hygiene’ to clean up oldest ones, including their snapshots, when it’s clear these are BEs I’d never need to return to.

On that point, I’d say there have only been perhaps one or two instances - in 10+ years - in which I’ve really felt a need to revert to a BE, and only then to the most-recent one.

>> 
>> Rgds,
>> Toomas
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