OpenSolaris Boot Environements equivalent

[Yassine Chaouche]

Hello all,

I was wondering if there was anyone working on an equivalent of OpenSolaris BE?
Basically,
It automatically creates ZFS snapshots of the whole system each time you do a system upgrade.
Next time you boot,
you'll have the choice of running the new system
or the old one.
Pretty handy to roll back in case anything goes wrong during the system update.

If nothing like it is avaiable for linux,
what would be the necessary steps to achieve something similar?
(even manually)

Best,

--
yassine -- sysadm
GSM/Viber: +213-779 06 06 23
http://about.me/ychaouche
Looking for side gigs.

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 6:28 AM Yassine Chaouche
<a.cha...@algerian-radio.dz> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I was wondering if there was anyone working on an equivalent of OpenSolaris BE?
> Basically,
> It automatically creates ZFS snapshots of the whole system each time you do a system upgrade.
> Next time you boot,
> you'll have the choice of running the new system
> or the old one.
> Pretty handy to roll back in case anything goes wrong during the system update.
>
> If nothing like it is avaiable for linux,
> what would be the necessary steps to achieve something similar?
> (even manually)

I _think_ Guix may be doing something similar using a transactional
package management system. I don't follow the project closely, so I
may be wrong.

https://guix.gnu.org/

Jeff

[Mario Marietto]

Hello Yassine,

I think you want nixos.org.

--

Mario.

[debia...@howorth.org.uk]

> Hello all,
>
> I was wondering if there was anyone working on an equivalent of
> OpenSolaris BE? Basically,
> It automatically creates ZFS snapshots of the whole system each time
> you do a system upgrade. Next time you boot,
> you'll have the choice of running the new system
> or the old one.
> Pretty handy to roll back in case anything goes wrong during the
> system update.
>
> If nothing like it is avaiable for linux,
> what would be the necessary steps to achieve something similar?
> (even manually)

openSUSE does this by default using a btrfs file system and its snapper
utility.

[gene heskett]

On 1/19/23 06:28, Yassine Chaouche wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I was wondering if there was anyone working on an equivalent of
> OpenSolaris BE?
> Basically,
> It automatically creates ZFS snapshots of the whole system each time you
> do a system upgrade.
> Next time you boot,
> you'll have the choice of running the new system
> or the old one.
> Pretty handy to roll back in case anything goes wrong during the system
> update.
>
> If nothing like it is avaiable for linux,
> what would be the necessary steps to achieve something similar?
> (even manually)
>
> Best,
>

Amanda. The learning curve is steep, needs lots of disk storage to run
best, and is fully automatic once configured to your system.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/>

[Christoph Brinkhaus]

Am Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 12:18:53PM +0100 schrieb Yassine Chaouche:

Hello Yassine,

> Hello all,
>
> I was wondering if there was anyone working on an equivalent of OpenSolaris BE?
> Basically,
> It automatically creates ZFS snapshots of the whole system each time you do a system upgrade.
> Next time you boot,
> you'll have the choice of running the new system
> or the old one.
> Pretty handy to roll back in case anything goes wrong during the system update.

That sounds that you are familiar with FreeBSD.
I am not familiar with ZFS on Linux but more or less to ZFS on
FreeBSD.

>
> If nothing like it is avaiable for linux,
> what would be the necessary steps to achieve something similar?
> (even manually)

Searching for Vermadens docs about boot environments I have stumped
over the link below.
https://ramsdenj.com/2020/03/18/zectl-zfs-boot-environment-manager-for-linux.html
I am not sure if this is useful for production.
But it is at least a pointer.

Kind regards,
Christoph
--
Ist die Katze gesund
schmeckt sie dem Hund.

[Mario Marietto]

The question asked by Yassine is interesting for me. I've been a FreeBSD user for some years. After having used Linux for 20 years, I took the decision to stop using it a little bit because of some technical reasons,mainly tied to the package management. Now that I'm using FreeBSD,I don't regret that choice,because the package management of FreeBSD rocks. That of some Linux distributions is unnecessarily complicated and problematic because of the problem of the unresolved dependencies. The question of Yassine is intriguing me a lot,even because I've used nixos for some time and I was impressed by that system management and I would ask to the freebsd forum if is possible,in some way,to create a menu,like the grub one,where the user can choose,before that FreeBSD start booting,which zfs snapshot they want to use.

Il giorno gio 19 gen 2023 alle ore 12:28 Yassine Chaouche <a.cha...@algerian-radio.dz> ha scritto:

--

Mario.

[Yassine Chaouche]

Le 1/19/23 à 3:41 PM, Mario Marietto a écrit :

> The question asked by Yassine is interesting for me. I've been a FreeBSD user for some years. After having used Linux for 20 years, I took the decision to stop using it a little bit because of some technical reasons,mainly tied to the package management. Now that I'm using FreeBSD,I don't regret that choice,because the package management of FreeBSD rocks. That of some Linux distributions is unnecessarily complicated and problematic because of the problem of the unresolved dependencies. The question of Yassine is intriguing me a lot,even because I've used nixos for some time and I was impressed by that system management and I would ask to the freebsd forum if is possible,in some way,to create a menu,like the grub one,where the user can choose,before that FreeBSD start booting,which zfs snapshot they want to use.

Mario,

I have been introduced to Boot Environments when I was exploring openindiana about a year and a half ago.
It's one of the forks of Solaris based on OpenSolaris (and the illumos kernel).

You might find this discussion interesting as it mentions how all of that is done automatically in that OS:
https://www.mail-archive.com/openindia...@openindiana.org/msg25345.html

Best,
--
yassine -- sysadm

[Mario Marietto]

I've tried Open Indiana for some time,but I stopped using it when a developer told me :

"Using our build machinery brings another level of burden and you'll need to learn a lot of new things additionally but when using it you can
participate in the project. If we don't find enough volunteers the project will end sooner or later. At the moment there are very few people working regularly on updates or fixes. We have many areas where nobody despite me is doing anything. Multimedia support is one example"

so,no reason for me to be involved in unnecessarily complicated tasks.FreeBSD is the right choice for me. It is not complicated and it is tricky enough to be enjoyed. I say this to say also that if I want to learn how the boot environment works,I will learn it from the FreeBSD world,not the open indiana world. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. Do you know if the boot environments of FreeBSD include a graphical boot menu ? Because this is the added value that I'm looking for. I would like to skip and save some time by avoiding some command line tasks. 

--

Mario.

[Anssi Saari]

Yassine Chaouche <a.cha...@algerian-radio.dz> writes:

> Hello all,
>
> I was wondering if there was anyone working on an equivalent of OpenSolaris BE?

A quick search came up with https://docs.zfsbootmenu.org/, does that fit
your needs?

[Mario Marietto]

I still do not understand why,when I remove files on a ZFS disk using commands like (rm and rm -r),the left space does not increase,but it decreases. I would like to know what I can do to free some space if removing files does not work. And I don't understand why a ZFS disk goes fast out of space. This does not happen with an UFS disk. From what I've understood every snapshot created with the ZFS mechanisms contains a full FreeBSD system. Am I right ? Do you confirm this ? If this is true,ZFS is too much space consuming and it will explain why the space will end very fast on the disk. That's not good for sure. Recently I've found a Linux distro called "NixOS" which uses another method to create snapshots. It is based on a large use of sim/soft and hard links to backup different versions of the system libraries. This method is useful when the system is upgraded. I would like to ask you if you would like to see this kind of solution also on FreeBSD. I really want to see the zfs boot menu suggested by Anssi on FreeBSD ! I like it very much ! Do you think it is hard to implement it there ?

--

Mario.

[Christoph Brinkhaus]

Am Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 02:16:57PM +0100 schrieb Mario Marietto:

Hi Mario,

> I still do not understand why,when I remove files on a ZFS disk using
> commands like (rm and rm -r),the left space does not increase,but it
> decreases. I would like to know what I can do to free some space if
> removing files does not work.

If you have snapshots in a data set and rm files they still can be
accessed in the hidden .zfs directories. Therefore the free space
should remain almost the same until you delete the snapshos.

> And I don't understand why a ZFS disk goes
> fast out of space. This does not happen with an UFS disk.

I have not observed that on my systems, but I have not stressed them a
lot.

> From what I've
> understood every snapshot created with the ZFS mechanisms contains a full
> FreeBSD system. Am I right ? Do you confirm this ? If this is true,ZFS is
> too much space consuming and it will explain why the space will end very
> fast on the disk. That's not good for sure.

A snapshot contains the references to files. Beside of management
overhead a snapshot does not consume any space. If you modify or
delete files on the data set where the snapshot has been taken off
the original files at the time of the snapshot claim their required
space in the snapshots hidden directory instead of the original data
set.

> Recently I've found a Linux
> distro called "NixOS" which uses another method to create snapshots. It is
> based on a large use of sim/soft and hard links to backup different
> versions of the system libraries. This method is useful when the system is
> upgraded. I would like to ask you if you would like to see this kind of
> solution also on FreeBSD. I really want to see the zfs boot menu suggested
> by Anssi on FreeBSD ! I like it very much ! Do you think it is hard to
> implement it there ?

That sounds a little bit like the software "time machine".

[David]

On Tue, 2023-01-24 at 11:52 +0100, Yassine Chaouche wrote:
> Le 1/19/23 à 7:50 PM, Mario Marietto a écrit :
> [...] Do you know if the boot environments of FreeBSD include a

> graphical boot menu ? Because this is the added value that I'm
> looking for. I would like to skip and save some time by avoiding some
> command line tasks.

https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

> I have no idea on that topic,
> as I'm not,
> and never been a daemon myself.
> Always been a pinguin.
>
> I tried a BSD once,
> at work,
> I asked the guy how to install a package,
> he told me you just have to do this,
> so I did that,
> and I bork the machine in under 15 minutes.
>
> The guy was trying to fix it,
> but then I saw him hold his head in his hands.
>
> Never touched it again
>
> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>
> Best,

[Yassine Chaouche]

Le 1/19/23 à 7:50 PM, Mario Marietto a écrit :
[...] Do you know if the boot environments of FreeBSD include a graphical boot menu ? Because this is the added value that I'm looking for. I would like to skip and save some time by avoiding some command line tasks.

I have no idea on that topic,
as I'm not,
and never been a daemon myself.
Always been a pinguin.

I tried a BSD once,
at work,
I asked the guy how to install a package,
he told me you just have to do this,
so I did that,
and I bork the machine in under 15 minutes.

The guy was trying to fix it,
but then I saw him hold his head in his hands.

Never touched it again

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Yassine Chaouche]

For the time being,
here are the proposed solutions :

1. opensuse's snapper
2. Guix
3. nixos
4. Amanda
5. Ubuntu with ZoL (ZFS on Linux)
6. ZFS boot menu


Mario, Anssi, Christoph, David, DdB, Gene, Jeffrey:
Thank you all for your providing feedback!

Best,

--
yassine -- sysadm

[Mario Marietto]

Yassine,if you think that you will not love FreeBSD only because you have seen your friend put his hands in his hair,you are interpreting the situation too severely. FreeBSD is a good OS,easier than Linux and which doesn't have all the unnecessary superstructure that Linux has, but offers almost all of the same features. And where it doesn't offer them, you can use bhyve to virtualize linux at all, even in the pass thru of the nvidia / amd gpus.

--

Mario.

[Yassine Chaouche]

Le 1/24/23 à 3:20 PM, Mario Marietto a écrit :
> Yassine,if you think that you will not love FreeBSD only because you have seen your friend put his handsin his hair,you areinterpreting the situation too severely. FreeBSD is a good OS,easier than Linux andwhich doesn't have all the unnecessarysuperstructurethat Linux has, but offers almost all of the same features. And where it doesn't offer them, you can use bhyve to virtualize linux at all, even in the pass thru of the nvidia / amd gpus.

I see.
But my experience has been otherwise.
In another company I worked for,
I saw pfSense constantly reboot the machine in an infinite loop after a buggy update.
It was installed on a device that was acting as a gateway for some 500+ corporate computers.
Fortunately, there was a second instance running to avoid service downtime in these types of scenarii.

On the other side,
I hear compliments about the different BSDs and unices out there,
especially the much acclaimed Sun's contributions in that regard
(ZFS, DTrace, SMF...).

I just didn't have much opportunities to work on those platforms,
but if that opportunity comes,
I'd love to give them a try,
if time allows.