On Wed, 2015-12-09 at 23:26 +0100, Michelle Sullivan wrote: > Jan Bramkamp wrote: > > On 09/12/15 13:45, Michelle Sullivan wrote: > > > > > > No that will just hide it (if successful at all) and it won't > > > work in > > > all cases. > > > > > > ... i386 is even worse for similar (not the same) instability > > > triggered > > > by the same scripts ... because zfs should not be used with the > > > stock > > > i386 kernel (which means if you're using it the whole patching > > > process > > > with freebsd-update won't work or will 'undo' your kernel > > > config.) > > > > Do you have a good idea how to prevent users from shooting > > themselves > > in the foot by running ZFS on 32 Bit kernels? > > Yes default not to having zfs available on any platform and allow > people > that know what they are doing to turn it on.... I mean "prevent > users > from shooting themselves in the foot" - how about by not having an > option to install a zfs root on the default install disks? > > > > > > Personally I think zfs should be optional only for 'advanced' > > > users and > > > come with a whole host of warnings about what it is not suitable > > > for.... > > > however, it seems to be treated as a magic bullet for data > > > corruption > > > issues yet all I have seen is an ever growing list of where it > > > causes > > > problems.. when did UFS become an unreliable FS that is > > > susceptible to > > > chronic data corruption? > > > > As storage capacity grew a lot faster than reliability. > > Yeah, that's why we have these multi-tes-of-terrabyte laptops that > must > have a zfs root install... > > > > > UFS is a good file system for its time, but it trusts hardware > > absolutely. Modern hardware doesn't deserve this level of trust. > > Ok at this point we have to question things... > > Does your average home machine need zfs? (because windows doesn't) > ... > does your average laptop require zfs (or even benefit) ...? In fact > when I look at it, I'm running 70+ servers and a few desktops and > I'm > running 5 of them with zfs... 2 of them absolutely need it, 2 of > them > are solaris (which probably doesn't count and certainly doesn't have > relevance to FreeBSD) the other is a 2005 P4 based server that is > completely unusable because zfs on i386 doesn't work with the stock > kernel.... and guess what ... it has 73G 15k SCSI Server drives in > it > so it probably has reliable hardware that doesn't suffer from "Modern > hardware doesn't deserve this level of trust" > > > ZFS detects and recovers without dataloss from most errors caused > > by > > the limited hardware reliability. > > Currently I've had more problems with the reliability of zfs in > FreeBSD > than reliability of hardware.. I do get your point though... > > > > > ZFS isn't just a tool to deal with hardware limitations it's also a > > convenience I no longer want to give up. Snapshots and replication > > streams simplify backups and a background scrub once a week (or > > month) > > sure beats waiting for fsck. > Now this is the one set of reasons I can really appreciate and had it > been the opening argument I'd have understood your position, but it > seems this is a side note to the above and the above is where I see > it's > completely useless... When ZFS was first developed a friend and I in > Sun had lots of fun setting up servers where we just chucked any old > drives we could lay our hands on into a pool ... this we found very > cool > and this was where 'unreliable' hardware was an understatement - the > drives were pulled from machines because SMART (and other tools) were > reporting the drive(s) failing..... but it was a work around for bad > sectors etc... > > Seriously though the default to install with zfs and root on zfs is a > really bad idea - the people who know how not to shoot themselves in > the > foot are those people that don't need a selectable option in the > install > because they know how to configure it... they're the people who will > probably be in every manual and advanced option they can find anyhow > (or > just using boot servers and predefined install scripts)....!! > > Regards, >
I sorry, but I really don't get your point, PCBSD has shown a great reason why zfs on root and on laptops/desktops is a good idea... boot environments. They have pretty much figured out how to use snapshots to go from A-B ping-pong installations to A-B-C-D-E.... installations. I am even aware of people using it to run Release and Current on the same machine. Unfortunately at the moment the system requires GRUB, but there is ongoing work to add the ability to the FreeBSD bootloader. Further IIRC zfs send-receive has a history involving a developer who wanted a better rsync for transfering his work to a laptop. In addition we have pretty much Moore's Lawed our way to the point where a new laptop today can out spec a typical server from when ZFS was first implemented. Hiding features because you 'can' shoot your foot off is hardly a typical UNIXy way of thinking anyway.
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