Problem with OVH ZFZ install

[Tapio Lehtonen]

How have you OVH users installed proxmox 5 ZFS? I tried the installation model provided by ovh.com, but although it offers possibility to customize partitions, it ignores the size I give and uses all of disk for the ZFS rpool (except UEFI partion and a third small partition for something).

fdisk -l /dev/sda /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sda: 894.3 GiB, 960197124096 bytes, 1875385008 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: EDA48F90-5CF5-4D86-B012-40DBD77431F5

Device          Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1          34    1048609    1048576   512M EFI System
/dev/sda2     1050624 1875368589 1874317966 893.8G Solaris /usr & Apple ZFS
/dev/sda9  1875368590 1875384974      16385     8M Solaris reserved 1

Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition 9 does not start on physical sector boundary.


Disk /dev/sdb: 894.3 GiB, 960197124096 bytes, 1875385008 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 36A9BAFF-05F4-4D49-926E-B3BEA4555AB9

Device          Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1          34    1048609    1048576   512M EFI System
/dev/sdb2     1050624 1875368589 1874317966 893.8G Solaris /usr & Apple ZFS
/dev/sdb9  1875368590 1875384974      16385     8M Solaris reserved 1

Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition 9 does not start on physical sector boundary.

I tried during installation to reduce the 2 partition, to make room for ZFS ZIL and cache for the rotating disks on this host. After three attempts I am convinced the partition size choosing is ignored and the same 893,8G partition is always created no matter what size I input.

Is it possible to shrink the partition 2 now after installation, and create new partitions to the freed space?

# zfs list
NAME               USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
rpool             5.26G   855G    96K  /rpool
rpool/ROOT        1.01G   855G    96K  /rpool/ROOT
rpool/ROOT/pve-1  1.01G   855G  1.01G  /
rpool/data          96K   855G    96K  /rpool/data
rpool/swap        4.25G   859G    64K  -

Or is it best just ignore the installation model provided by OVH, and upload Proxmox 5.3 installer and install Proxmox with ZFS from that?

 

[krystofr]

Hi there,

I used the OVH installer about a year ago as at the time their IPMI was having problems so I couldn’t upload the Proxmox ISO. I found the same issue as you though at the time in the OVH control panel ZFS in Proxmox was described as Beta something which it no longer is.

I recently installed another server also with OVH and used the IPMI to upload the installer for Proxmox 5.3, and it the partitions were properly configured and there was no problems.

I’m not sure what OVH do or don’t do for their installer, but use the IPMI to upload and use the latest official Proxmox installer would be my recommendation.

 

[Tapio Lehtonen]

Thanks for the info. I have now given up on that OVH installation model. Altering partition size just plain does not work. And the disk size it shows is wrong, and it does not create the partitions it shows in the OVH tool. So nevermore. It does work, however, if there is no need to change the partitions it is going to create.

Using IPMI fails also for me. I can start the Java applet JViewer, but can not get it to display console or anything at all, just black screen. And the Media menu offers Media Wizard, which I suppose allows me to use ISO file on my workstation as virtual CD drive on the host, but that shows "Virtual Media redirection licence required".

In case you folks wonder why I complain about these things here, I have a ticket at OVH since two days, but no reply yet.

What is the trick with IPMI? Does it work from Debian 9, with the usual openjdk-8-jre:amd64 8u181-b13-2~deb9u1 or should I use Windows with some particular Java runtime?

Please, some knowledgeable person help me to get this OVH dedicated host installed with ZFS.

 

[Tapio Lehtonen]

I borrowed a Windows 10 laptop and installed Oracle Java 8 Update 201. Then IPMI worked, and I managed to install proxmox with ZFS. Unfortunately the installed system does not boot. In EFI shell the boot devices I see are two network interfaces, EFI shell and CD device. No disk drives.
An annoyance is the IPMI connection is bandwith throttled to 600 kbps, so the installation took 4 hours.

What I have read indicates it is not possible to shrink the disk space in the ZFS partition. Is this correct?