zpool upgrade

dodi71

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Jan 8, 2020
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Is it safe to use 'zpool upgrade' on the rpool and nas pool. the Proxmox-boot-tool status is:

04AB-4804 is configured with: uefi (versions: 5.3.18-3-pve, 5.4.106-1-pve, 5.4.98-1-pve), grub (versions: 5.13.19-6-pve, 5.15.35-1-pve)
04AB-8A6C is configured with: uefi (versions: 5.3.18-3-pve, 5.4.106-1-pve, 5.4.98-1-pve), grub (versions: 5.13.19-6-pve, 5.15.35-1-pve)

regards,
 
Is it safe to use 'zpool upgrade' on the rpool and nas pool. the Proxmox-boot-tool status is:
please post the complete output of proxmox-boot-tool status - the line indicating how that system is currently booted is missing
(it seems as if the system used to be booted with UEFI but switched to legacy with 7.1?! This sounds rather odd)

else to verify which bootloader is used - please check the reference documenation:
https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-sysadmin.html#sysboot_determine_bootloader_used

pools, which are not rpool should be safe for upgrading in any case

I hope this helps!
 
Thanks @Stoiko Ivanov for your reply. I verified the boot loader used by the system and it is confirmed to be Grub. I have noticed that I have two kernels i.ei :

Automatically selected kernels:
5.13.19-6-pve
5.15.35-1-pve

and the pinned kernel is:

Pinned kernel:
5.15.35-1-pve

I was thinking to remove the old version (5.13.19-6-pve) but wanted to confirm if it is safe?

BTW, I have upgraded the NAS ZFS without any problems. now what is left is the rpool ZFS.

Regards,
 
and the pinned kernel is:

Pinned kernel:
5.15.35-1-pve
there is no need to pin the latest kernel (it's the one that gets booted automatically anyways)

I was thinking to remove the old version (5.13.19-6-pve) but wanted to confirm if it is safe?
I usually would recommend to keep at least one older version around (in case some upgrade of 5.15.35-1-pve breaks with your hardware you can still boot into 5.13.19-6-pve - and PVE's tooling takes care of removing older version, so they don't waste too much disk-space

I hope this helps!
 
Hi,

because "zpool status" advices me to use "zpool upgrade"...

Code:
# zpool status
  pool: rpool
 state: ONLINE
status: Some supported features are not enabled on the pool. The pool can
        still be used, but some features are unavailable.
action: Enable all features using 'zpool upgrade'. Once this is done,
        the pool may no longer be accessible by software that does not support
        the features. See zpool-features(5) for details.
  scan: scrub repaired 0B in 1 days 01:17:00 with 0 errors on Mon Aug 15 01:41:02 2022
config:

        NAME                              STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        rpool                             ONLINE       0     0     0
          raidz2-0                        ONLINE       0     0     0
            wwn-0x50014ee0aeffd3a2-part2  ONLINE       0     0     0
            wwn-0x50014ee20a994153-part2  ONLINE       0     0     0
            wwn-0x50014ee2b8e68c2d-part2  ONLINE       0     0     0
            wwn-0x50014ee2ba1acc3e-part2  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors
#
...my question is the same as the original poster because the given answer are not completely satisfying for me: Is it safe to "zpool upgrade"?

I'm not aware of using special ZFS features and overall using a Proxmox "default installation", currently Proxmox Virtual Environment 6.4-14, which I want to upgrade to the current version in the next days.

Because it was requested before my output of "proxmox.boot-tool status" is:

Code:
# proxmox-boot-tool status
Re-executing '/usr/sbin/proxmox-boot-tool' in new private mount namespace..
E: /etc/kernel/proxmox-boot-uuids does not exist.
 
I'm not aware of using special ZFS features and overall using a Proxmox "default installation", currently Proxmox Virtual Environment 6.4-14, which I want to upgrade to the current version in the next days.

Because it was requested before my output of "proxmox.boot-tool status" is:
from the output I guess you're still using grub to directly boot from ZFS - such setups are in general _not_ safe to run zpool upgrade on!
the procedure to adapt this to use proxmox-boot-tool is described in the pve-wiki:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/ZFS:_Switch_Legacy-Boot_to_Proxmox_Boot_Tool

I hope this helps!
 
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from the output I guess you're still using grub to directly boot from ZFS - such setups are in general _not_ safe to run zpool upgrade on!
the procedure to adapt this to use proxmox-boot-tool is described in the pve-wiki:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/ZFS:_Switch_Legacy-Boot_to_Proxmox_Boot_Tool

I hope this helps!
Thank you @Stoiko Ivanov, I'm really happy that I asked before trying it. Yes, I installed Promox when Proxmox 4 or 5 was the current version so it is using grub.
Given that I want to upgrade from Proxmox 6 to 7: Is it mandatory that I do a zpool upgrade (and for this to switch from legacy boot to proxmox boot tool) before I upgrade to Proxmox 7 or can I just keep the current zpool version (and grub) without going into some trouble with Proxmox 7?
 
Yes, I installed Promox when Proxmox 4 or 5
Hmm - that's been quite a while - and in the meantime the partitioning scheme of the installer changed (a few times) - in order to comfortably use proxmox-boot-tool you need to have a free partition with a size of 512M (smaller might work as well - but you need to manually clear out some kernels every now and then) - since this partition stores the kernel-images and initrds (which can become quite large).
(the wiki-page I linked explains how to find these)

Given that I want to upgrade from Proxmox 6 to 7: Is it mandatory that I do a zpool upgrade (and for this to switch from legacy boot to proxmox boot tool)
No - it's not strictly mandatory - however in my experience booting with grub directly from ZFS is quite fragile (we had a few reports where systems stopped working all of a sudden - and the reasons were quite hard to track down (grub-implementation of an old HP raid-card driver was not able to read past 2G,....)) - so I personally would prefer to use proxmox-boot-tool - additionally you don't have to worry that you render your system unbootable by accidentally upgrading your rpool.

If possible you could consider installing PVE freshly and then restoring your guests from a backup.
else - make sure you have a backup - and I assume if your system ran fine till now it will run after the upgrade as well
 
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No - it's not strictly mandatory - however in my experience booting with grub directly from ZFS is quite fragile
Just survived the upgrade to VE 7, thank you! :)

If possible you could consider installing PVE freshly and then restoring your guests from a backup.
else - make sure you have a backup - and I assume if your system ran fine till now it will run after the upgrade as well
That's the point again and again: Nobody told me when I planned to run my own (home) server that the budget should be enough to actually buy two servers (one for production, one for backup). On the other hand: If someone would have told me that I actually need two servers for a serious setup I would never hab beend started running my own server. ;)
But yes, I have to consider a backup system. Maybe the Proxmox Backup Server as VM as part of my current server is a cheap solution with just one additional external hard drive.

However, thanks again for your support. Need some sleep now...
 
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That's the point again and again: Nobody told me when I planned to run my own (home) server that the budget should be enough to actually buy two servers (one for production, one for backup). On the other hand: If someone would have told me that I actually need two servers for a serious setup I would never start with my own server. ;)
But yes, I have to consider a backup system.

Sorry, but this should be common sense.
If you care about your data and the time and work/effort you have invested in installing and setting up your systems, it should be obvious to have reasonable backups of all of this. (BTW: Raid is no backup!)
 
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Sorry, but this should be common sense.
If you care about your data and the time and work/effort you have invested in installing and setting up your systems, it should be obvious to have reasonable backups of all of this. (BTW: Raid is no backup!)
Sure it is, but it is also a question of ressources to backup a server in the "common sense". The question is: Can I operate a server to avoid throwing my data into common "free" clouds like Google Drive and using "free" messengers like WhatsApp? Yes, in my case I can. But can I operate a server *and* a full backup system in terms of time, energy, license and hardware costs? No, in my case I can not, because the costs are simply too high for me. So shall I use GoogleDrive and WhatsApp then because I can not do everything as in the "common sense"? No, because although you can not do everything in the right way you should'nt do everything in the wrong way. And in my opinion the wronger way would be using "free" GAFAM services because I can not operate a "common sense" backup system.

Anyway thank you for your reply. It caused me to ask for concepts for a low cost backup system: https://forum.proxmox.com/posts/499133/
 
in order to comfortably use proxmox-boot-tool you need to have a free partition with a size of 512M (smaller might work as well - but you need to manually clear out some kernels every now and then) - since this partition stores the kernel-images and initrds (which can become quite large).
Will a 286MB partition work if you just got the few kernels PVE prevents from removing when using apt autoremove aufter each update?
I'm also still using grub here. Created a unused 286MB partition back then to be able to maybe switch to ESP but then never did it because it wasn't the 512MB that I thought PVE would require.

Not that easy to free up space to extend the potential ESP:
Code:
NAME                              MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
sda                                 8:0    0  93.2G  0 disk
├─sda1                              8:1    0     1M  0 part
├─sda2                              8:2    0   286M  0 part
├─sda3                              8:3    0   488M  0 part
│ └─md0                             9:0    0   487M  0 raid1 /boot
└─sda4                              8:4    0  92.4G  0 part
  └─md1                             9:1    0  92.3G  0 raid1
    └─md1_crypt                   253:0    0  92.3G  0 crypt
      ├─vgpmx-lvroot              253:1    0    21G  0 lvm   /
      └─vgpmx-lvswap              253:2    0    61G  0 lvm   [SWAP]
sdb                                 8:16   0  93.2G  0 disk
├─sdb1                              8:17   0     1M  0 part
├─sdb2                              8:18   0   286M  0 part  /boot/efi
├─sdb3                              8:19   0   488M  0 part
│ └─md0                             9:0    0   487M  0 raid1 /boot
└─sdb4                              8:20   0  92.4G  0 part
  └─md1                             9:1    0  92.3G  0 raid1
    └─md1_crypt                   253:0    0  92.3G  0 crypt
      ├─vgpmx-lvroot              253:1    0    21G  0 lvm   /
      └─vgpmx-lvswap              253:2    0    61G  0 lvm   [SWAP]

Anyway thank you for your reply. It caused me to ask for concepts for a low cost backup system
Cheap backup system would be two USB HDDs you rotate and store one of them not at home. Vzdump should be fine for guest backups, you could use something like rsync to backup the hosts config files and making these USB HDDs bootable with clonezilla would even allow you to backup the whole PVE server on block level. No need for a second server as long as you don't need any redundancy and you don't forget to do your weekly manual backups.
 
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Sure it is, but it is also a question of resources to backup a server in the "common sense". The question is: Can I operate a server to avoid throwing my data into common "free" clouds like Google Drive and using "free" messengers like WhatsApp? Yes, in my case I can. But can I operate a server *and* a full backup system in terms of time, energy, license and hardware costs? No, in my case I can not, because the costs are simply too high for me. So shall I use GoogleDrive and WhatsApp. Then because I can not do everything as in the "common sense"? No, because although you can not do everything in the right way you should'nt do everything in the wrong way. And in my opinion the wronger way would be using "free" GAFAM services because I can not operate a "common sense" backup system.
Right !
 
Sure it is, but it is also a question of ressources to backup a server in the "common sense". The question is: Can I operate a server to avoid throwing my data into common "free" clouds like Google Drive and using "free" messengers like WhatsApp? Yes, in my case I can. But can I operate a server *and* a full backup system in terms of time, energy, license and hardware costs? No, in my case I can not, because the costs are simply too high for me. So shall I use GoogleDrive and WhatsApp then because I can not do everything as in the "common sense"? No, because although you can not do everything in the right way you should'nt do everything in the wrong way. And in my opinion the wronger way would be using "free" GAFAM services because I can not operate a "common sense" backup system.

Anyway thank you for your reply. It caused me to ask for concepts for a low cost backup system: https://forum.proxmox.com/posts/499133/

Like Dunuin already said, you do not need an additional backup server at all. Using any kind of external/separate storage with vzdump would be enough. If you do those backups only manually, this storage does not even need to run 24/7.
 
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from the output I guess you're still using grub to directly boot from ZFS - such setups are in general _not_ safe to run zpool upgrade on!
the procedure to adapt this to use proxmox-boot-tool is described in the pve-wiki:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/ZFS:_Switch_Legacy-Boot_to_Proxmox_Boot_Tool

I hope this helps!


Essentially same situation here, but with 8.1, I notied zpool status saying

Code:
...
status: Some supported and requested features are not enabled on the pool.
        The pool can still be used, but some features are unavailable.
action: Enable all features using 'zpool upgrade'. Once this is done,
        the pool may no longer be accessible by software that does not support
        the features. See zpool-features(7) for details.
...

# proxmox-boot-tool status
Re-executing '/usr/sbin/proxmox-boot-tool' in new private mount namespace..
System currently booted with uefi
7A7F-1E73 is configured with: uefi (versions: 6.2.16-19-pve, 6.2.16-3-pve, 6.5.11-6-pve)
7A81-D268 is configured with: uefi (versions: 6.2.16-19-pve, 6.2.16-3-pve, 6.5.11-6-pve)
7A83-7C66 is configured with: uefi (versions: 6.2.16-19-pve, 6.2.16-3-pve, 6.5.11-6-pve)

Would this be safe to zpool upgrade?

I have good backup's, but prefer not wasting several days with a restore....
 
Same question as rcd .... My boot tool status is similar indicating UEFI and I am on 8.1.3.

So is it safe to run zpool upgrade on the drive containing the boot partition. This is a single drive. No mirror or stripe.

/dev/sda
/dev/sda1 - BIOS boot
/dev/sda2 - EFI
/dev/sda3 - ZFS (rpool)

I would think the upgrade would only touch Partition 3 but would also like to confirm before I press the button.

Thanks in advance.
 

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