I have already explained how I deal with ZFS mirror setup on Ubuntu 18.10. But what about laptops that generally come with a single drive?

Well, as before basic instructions are available from ZFS-on-Linux project. However, they do have a certain way of doing things I don’t necessarily subscribe to. Here is my way of setting this up. As always, it’s best to setup remote access so you can copy/paste as steps are numerous.

As before, we first need to get into root prompt:

$ sudo -i

Followed by getting a few basic packages ready:

# apt-add-repository universe
# apt update
# apt install --yes debootstrap gdisk zfs-initramfs

We setup disks essentially the same way as in previous guide:

# sgdisk --zap-all                 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk

# sgdisk -a1 -n3:34:2047  -t3:EF02 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk
# sgdisk     -n2:1M:+511M -t2:8300 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk
# sgdisk     -n1:0:0      -t1:8300 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk

# sgdisk --print                   /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk
…
Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1         1050624        67108830   31.5 GiB    8300
   2            2048         1050623   512.0 MiB   8300
   3              34            2047   1007.0 KiB  EF02

We can immediately setup boot partition:

# mke2fs -Ft ext2 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk-part2
# mkdir /mnt/rpool/boot/
# mount /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk-part4 /mnt/rpool/boot/

And, because of course we want encryption, we need to setup LUKS:

# cryptsetup luksFormat -qc aes-xts-plain64 -s 256 -h sha256 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk-part1
# cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk-part1 luks1

Unlike in the last guide, this time I want to have a bit of separation. Dataset system will contain the whole system, while data will contain only the home directories. Again, if you want to split it all, follow the original guide:

# zpool create -o ashift=12 -O atime=off -O canmount=off -O compression=lz4 -O normalization=formD \
      -O xattr=sa -O mountpoint=none rpool /dev/mapper/luks1
# zfs create -o canmount=noauto -o mountpoint=/mnt/rpool/ rpool/system
# zfs mount rpool/system

Now we can get basic installation on out disks:

# debootstrap cosmic /mnt/rpool/
# zfs set devices=off rpool
# zfs list

Before we start using it, we prepare few necessary files:

# cp /etc/hostname /mnt/rpool/etc/hostname
# cp /etc/hosts /mnt/rpool/etc/hosts
# cp /etc/netplan/*.yaml /mnt/rpool/etc/netplan/
# sed '/cdrom/d' /etc/apt/sources.list > /mnt/rpool/etc/apt/sources.list

With chroot we can get the first taste of our new system:

# mount --rbind /dev  /mnt/rpool/dev
# mount --rbind /proc /mnt/rpool/proc
# mount --rbind /sys  /mnt/rpool/sys
# chroot /mnt/rpool/ /bin/bash --login

Now we can update our software and perform locale and time zone setup:

# apt update

# locale-gen --purge "en_US.UTF-8"
# update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=en_US
# dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive locales

# dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Now we install Linux image and basic ZFS boot packages:

# apt install --yes --no-install-recommends linux-image-generic
# apt install --yes zfs-initramfs

Since we’re dealing with encrypted data, our cryptsetup should be also auto mounted:

# apt install --yes cryptsetup

# echo "luks1 UUID=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk-part1) none luks,discard,initramfs" >> /etc/crypttab
# cat /etc/crypttab

And of course, we need to auto-mount our boot partition too:

# echo "UUID=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk-part2) /boot ext2 noatime 0 2" >> /etc/fstab
# cat /etc/fstab

Now we get grub started (do select the WHOLE disk):

# apt install --yes grub-pc

And update our boot environment again (seeing errors is nothing unusual):

# update-initramfs -u -k all

And then we finalize our grup setup:

# update-grub
# grub-install /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk

Finally we get the rest of desktop system:

# apt-get install --yes ubuntu-desktop samba linux-headers-generic
# apt dist-upgrade --yes

We can omit creation of the swap dataset but I always find it handy:

# zfs create -V 4G -b $(getconf PAGESIZE) -o compression=off -o logbias=throughput -o sync=always \
      -o primarycache=metadata -o secondarycache=none rpool/swap
# mkswap -f /dev/zvol/rpool/swap
# echo "/dev/zvol/rpool/swap none swap defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
# echo RESUME=none > /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume

And now is good time to swap our /home directory too:

# rmdir /home
# zfs create -o mountpoint=/home rpool/data

Now we are ready to create the user:

# adduser -u 1002 user
# usermod -a -G adm,cdrom,dip,lpadmin,plugdev,sambashare,sudo user
# chown -R user:user /home/user

Lastly we exit our chroot environment and reboot:

# exit
# reboot

You will get stuck after the password prompt as our mountpoint for system dataset is wrong. That’s easy to correct:

# zfs set mountpoint=/ rpool/system
# exit
# reboot

Assuming nothing went wrong, your system is now ready.

Due to Dropbox’s idiotic decision to limit file system support drastically for no reason other than to piss people off, I have a small ext4 volume hosted on my ZFS pool.

Originally I made it a bit small (only 8 GB) and got Dropbox complaining. Had I created it as partition, enlarging it would be annoying task at best. However, having it exposed as ZFS block volume, resize was trivial.

First I simply increased volsize property and then told ext4 to simply use that additional space (resize2fs command):

$ sudo zfs set volsize=16G rpool/data/dropbox

$ sudo resize2fs /dev/zvol/rpool/data/dropbox
resize2fs 1.44.4 (18-Aug-2018)
Filesystem at /dev/zvol/rpool/data/dropbox is mounted on /home/user/Dropbox; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 2
The filesystem on /dev/zvol/rpool/data/dropbox is now 4194304 (4k) blocks long.

Doesn’t get much easier.

As I was setting up my new Linux machine with two disks, I decided to forgo my favorite Linux Mint and give Ubuntu another try. Main reason? ZFS of course.

Ubuntu already has a quite decent guide for ZFS setup but it’s slightly lacking in the mirroring department. So, here I will list steps that follow their approach closely but with slight adjustments as not only I want encrypted setup but also a proper ZFS mirror setup. If you need a single disk ZFS setup, stick with the original guide.

After booting into installation, we can go for Try Ubuntu and open a terminal. My strong suggestion would be to install openssh-server package first and connect to it remotely because that allows for copy/paste:

$ passwd
Changing password for ubuntu.
(current) UNIX password: (empty)
Enter new UNIX password: password
Retype new UNIX password: password
passwd: password updated successfully

$ sudo apt install --yes openssh-server

Regardless if you continue directly or you connect via SSH (username is ubuntu), the first task is to get onto root prompt and never leave it again. :)

$ sudo -i

To get the ZFS on, we need Internet connection and extra repository:

# sudo apt-add-repository universe
# apt update

Now we can finally install ZFS, partitioning utility, and an installation tool:

# apt install --yes debootstrap gdisk zfs-initramfs

First we clean the partition table on disks followed by a few partition definitions (do change ID to match your disks):

# sgdisk --zap-all /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1
# sgdisk --zap-all /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2

# sgdisk -a1 -n2:34:2047 -t2:EF02 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1
# sgdisk -a1 -n2:34:2047 -t2:EF02 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2

# sgdisk     -n3:1M:+512M -t3:EF00 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1
# sgdisk     -n3:1M:+512M -t3:EF00 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2

# sgdisk     -n4:0:+512M  -t4:8300 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1
# sgdisk     -n4:0:+512M  -t4:8300 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2

# sgdisk     -n1:0:0      -t1:8300 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1
# sgdisk     -n1:0:0      -t1:8300 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2

After all these we should end up with both disks showing 4 distinct partitions:

# sgdisk --print /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1
…
Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1         2099200        67108830   31.0 GiB    8300
   2              34            2047   1007.0 KiB  EF02
   3            2048         1050623   512.0 MiB   EF00
   4         1050624         2099199   512.0 MiB   8300

With partitioning done, it’s time to encrypt our disks and mount them (note that we only encrypt the first partition, not the whole disk):

# cryptsetup luksFormat -c aes-xts-plain64 -s 256 -h sha256 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1-part1
# cryptsetup luksFormat -c aes-xts-plain64 -s 256 -h sha256 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2-part1

# cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1-part1 luks1
# cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2-part1 luks2

Finally we can create our pool (rpool is a “standard” name) consisting of both encrypted devices:

# zpool create -o ashift=12 -O atime=off -O compression=lz4 \
      -O normalization=formD -O xattr=sa -O mountpoint=/ -R /mnt/rpool \
      rpool mirror /dev/mapper/luks1 /dev/mapper/luks2

There is advantage into creating fine grained datasets as the official guide instructs, but I personally don’t do it. Having one big free-for-all pile is OK for me – anything of any significance I anyhow keep on my network drive where I have properly setup ZFS with rights, quotas, and all other goodies.

Since we are using LUKS encryption, we do need to mount 4th partition too. We’ll do it for both disks and deal with syncing them later:

# mkdir /mnt/rpool/boot
# mke2fs -t ext2 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1-part4
# mount /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1-part4 /mnt/rpool/boot

# mkdir /mnt/rpool/boot2
# mke2fs -t ext2 /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2-part4
# mount /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2-part4 /mnt/rpool/boot2

Now we can finally start copying our Linux (do check for current release codename using lsb_release -a). This will take a while:

# debootstrap cosmic /mnt/rpool/

Once done, turn off devices flag on pool and check if data has been written or we messed the paths up:

# zfs set devices=off rpool
# zfs list
NAME    USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
rpool   218M  29.6G   217M  /mnt/rpool

Since our system is bare, we do need to prepare a few configuration files:

# cp /etc/hostname /mnt/rpool/etc/hostname
# cp /etc/hosts /mnt/rpool/etc/hosts
# cp /etc/netplan/*.yaml /mnt/rpool/etc/netplan/
# sed '/cdrom/d' /etc/apt/sources.list > /mnt/rpool/etc/apt/sources.list

Finally we get to try our our new system:

# mount --rbind /dev  /mnt/rpool/dev
# mount --rbind /proc /mnt/rpool/proc
# mount --rbind /sys  /mnt/rpool/sys
# chroot /mnt/rpool/ /bin/bash --login

Once in our new OS, a few further updates are in order:

# apt update

# locale-gen --purge "en_US.UTF-8"
# update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=en_US
# dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive locales

# dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Now we need to install linux image and headers:

# apt install --yes --no-install-recommends linux-image-generic linux-headers-generic

Then we configure booting ZFS:

# apt install --yes zfs-initramfs
# echo UUID=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1-part4) /boot  ext2 noatime 0 2 >> /etc/fstab
# echo UUID=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2-part4) /boot2 ext2 noatime 0 2 >> /etc/fstab

And disk decryption:

# apt install --yes cryptsetup
# echo "luks1 UUID=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1-part1) none luks,discard,initramfs" >> /etc/crypttab
# echo "luks2 UUID=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2-part1) none luks,discard,initramfs" >> /etc/crypttab

And install grub bootloader (select both disks – not partitions!):

# apt install --yes grub-pc

Followed by update of boot environment (some errors are ok):

# update-initramfs -u -k all
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.18.0-12-generic
cryptsetup: ERROR: Couldn't resolve device rpool
cryptsetup: WARNING: Couldn't determine root device

Now we update the grub and fix its config (only needed if you are not using sub-datasets):

# update-grub
# sed -i "s^root=ZFS=rpool/^root=ZFS=rpool^g" /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Now we get to copy all boot files to second disk:

# cp -rp /boot/* /boot2/

With grub install we’re getting close to the end of story:

# grub-install /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk1
Installing for i386-pc platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.

# grub-install /dev/disk/by-id/ata_disk2
Installing for i386-pc platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.

Now we install full GUI and upgrade whatever needs it (takes a while):

# sudo apt-get install --yes ubuntu-desktop samba
# apt dist-upgrade --yes

As this probably updated grub, we need to both correct config (only if we have bare dataset) and copy files to the other boot partition (this has to be repeated on every grub update):

# sed -i "s^root=ZFS=rpool/^root=ZFS=rpool^g" /boot/grub/grub.cfg
# cp -rp /boot/* /boot2/

Having some swap is always a good idea:

# zfs create -V 4G -b $(getconf PAGESIZE) -o compression=off -o logbias=throughput -o sync=always \
      -o primarycache=metadata -o secondarycache=none rpool/swap

# mkswap -f /dev/zvol/rpool/swap
# echo /dev/zvol/rpool/swap none swap defaults 0 0 >> /etc/fstab
# echo RESUME=none > /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume

Almost there, it’s time to set root password:

# passwd

And to create our user for desktop environment:

# adduser user
# usermod -a -G adm,cdrom,dip,lpadmin,plugdev,sambashare,sudo user

Finally, we can reboot (don’t forget to remove CD) and enjoy our system:

# exit
# reboot