ZFS Gentoo failed to boot initramfs

kucklehead · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Oct 2020 Posts: 108

I am using zfsbootmenu with gentoo-sources, and for some reason I would boot of my kernel, it will try to load the initramfs and will shoot me back to a screen where I can press F9 to manually boot again. I tried downgrading zfs utils to 2.1.15, I added the kexec-tools patch. I tried using 6.1 kernel version and still the same issue. I am now using 6.6.21, but for some reason 6.6.13 works, but I haven't reconfigured it yet due to the fact 6.6.13 is now masked for amd64. I am pretty desperate that I don't know if installing zfs statically would work or rather if static is the best choice to go with. I don't know what to post here so to say that could help with the issue besides my .config file and the packages I have installed on my machine.

CONFIG LINK:
https://termbin.com/41lv

I also noticed that docker's overlayfs can be an issue if you're running zfs... Well at least in my experience.

equery list '*':

https://termbin.com/smlw

The packages above are installed on my system, which also probably need to be cleaned out as I swapped over to wayland + sway with ryzen cpu. For some reason my system has used 64GB of space which literally makes no sense at all. So even finding packages that are needed will be so helpful for me

turtles · Veteran Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 1695

kucklehead · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Oct 2020 Posts: 108

Here is the requested info:
https://bpa.st/PY6Q

There should be a lot more configurations outputted instead of three or four as I recently configured 6.6.21 to support docker, but I accidentally overwritten the config file with the bzImage, so I just reused my 6.6.13 config

pingtoo

kucklehead · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Oct 2020 Posts: 108

I did in fact re-emerge zfs-kmod, right before I create/rebuild the initramfs/initrd with dracut. And of course this is after I compile the modules and install them. I noticed the configurations are slightly different, which you can view from my previous post. I am going to try to add the configurations to 6.6.21, and configure docker once again, and see if that was the issue all along.

kucklehead · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Oct 2020 Posts: 108

I did in fact re-emerge zfs-kmod, right before I create/rebuild the initramfs/initrd with dracut. And of course this is after I compile the modules and install them. I noticed the configurations are slightly different, which you can view from my previous post. I am going to try to add the configurations to 6.6.21, and configure docker once again, and see if that was the issue all along.

pingtoo · Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2024 3:22 pm Post subject:

kucklehead,

Since you did everything right, I am not sure what else at this time.

However if you wish to continue work with me in this conversation, I will be happy to serve as second pair of eye to go through the setup process, I plan to review the zfsbootmenu document and gentoo zfs document and ask series of questions. this is in hope that in my questions that will ring a bell for you to see if there is any step(s) you might have missed during the rebuild process.

There is always a chance the new kernel may have something incompatible with your setup, however I believe it is easier to review existing processes to verify that all steps were correctly executed before dig in to code to see where the compatibility issue rise.

kucklehead · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Oct 2020 Posts: 108

That would be really helpful if you could serve as a second pair of eyes; however, my responses will be random and not consistent due to the fact that I am still an undergrad. I do have notes that go through all the steps of installing zfs on Linux. I already have two successful zfs installations, which are Ubuntu and Arch Linux. My Ubuntu is using Grub, and my Arch Linux is using Bootctl. I think that is the name.

The user manual for zfsbootmenu kind of confused me at first when it talked about the boot environment. I was thinking the boot environment was the kernel itself, so I pointed everything to my boot partition. But my logic was flawed because the boot environment is actually the system itself, so whatever dataset has a root, make sure it points to it. I do not want you to make the same mistake I did.

That said, there was an issue with a certain version of zfsbootmenu. I believe 2.0 wouldn't detect the scripts I created. Normally, you could store the scripts inside /boot/efi/hooks (the folder is probably not hooks; it is just an example). These bash scripts I made would unlock my Linux partition and so forth. To fix this issue, I had to upgrade to 3.0. This information is probably vague or partially true because someone explained this to me in the zfsbootmenu channel or zfs channel roughly a month ago, but it should give an idea of how difficult zfsbootmenu can be at times.

Perhaps you already know this; however, I am saying this for those who are interested in zfsbootmenu and do not know as much about it. The zfs-gentoo wiki is still under construction the last time I looked, and it does not have sections that walk you through zfs-gentoo-sources. This may be vague or not clear, so to sum it up, they have a section where they download an EFI and use kernel-bin; this section also assumes root is not inside the Linux partition. They do not have a section where it shows the user how to generate an EFI file using generate-zbm and does not show steps to help users who have root inside the Linux partition. I was planning on cleaning up my notes and seeing if I could fill those sections up. They do need to be cleaned up and reworded to avoid copyright infringement.

pingtoo · Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2024 9:38 pm Post subject:

kucklehead,

I am glad you accept my proposal. I hope we will be able to find where the culprit and learn something new.

No worries about times. I am retired I can always find something else to do in the mean time.

I think we need to sync our terminology.

I am not sure when you refer "boot partition" what does it mean in the ZFS world. Do you mean a zvol? And from your initial post, you said "shoot me back to a screen where I can press F9", I haven't been using PC for many years now. so I am not sure what does it mean, my guess it take you back to BIOS and let you select where to boot from?

Are your FBL (First Boot Loader) is BIOS (old PC way) or EFI?

turtles · Veteran Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 1695

kucklehead · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Oct 2020 Posts: 108

I am currently using EFI. What you said is exactly what is happening. It shoots me back the bios where I can select my vmlinuz.EFI. Anyways, I honestly thought that me building in docker support was the issue, and the possible solution to fix that would be statically linking the zfs module and build the kernel. I downgraded to zfs-2.1.15 which now supports 6.7 kernels. If I understand correctly, the zfs module will not be loaded during runtime, and therefore, if there was an issue with docker, it would have been probably resolved. The only other issue I can think of is the firmware. I am currently using amdgpu and I have the blobs built into the initramfs. There was an error I was getting in my dmesg, something like this: " amdgpu: Secure display: Generic Failure." and all I could find about that error was there was something wrong with the new firmware.

pingtoo · Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2024 6:51 pm Post subject:

kucklehead,

Allow me to introduce another Gentoo forums thread:zfsbootmenu issues booting stucks?The thread share similar interest so it could be a good reference.

I will reiterate a point I made in above thread, "zfsbootmenu" introduce a linux kernel in its own, then user of zfsbootmenu can have another linux kernel that will be the finial runtime environment.

So can you clarify which kernel image you reference in your first post. one you used for zfsbootment or kernel to be used in final runtime.

You said you build with docker what is build with docker? the zfsbootmenu image? linux kernel?, initramfs? or something else?

Was your zfsbootmenu a "bundle"? or it is separated in a kernel + initramfs?

My questions could be bit of out of sync in a sense that is not relevant, but please forgive me, I have lost my original train of thoughts, so kind of need a refreshment.

I think the amdgpu module should not get into play inside zfsbootmenu yet, as long as the kernel inside the zfsbootmenu system inherit EFI's setting you would not need a special display driver. I mean the kernel inside the zfsbootmenu should have framebuffer to support what EFI initialised display system.

kucklehead · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Oct 2020 Posts: 108

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREREQS:
Make sure you have enabled the boot flag for systemd package

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Step one:

pingtoo · Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2024 6:58 pm Post subject:

kucklehead,

Thank you very much for the detail explain, much appreciated.

pingtoo · file /path/to/<kernel 6.6.13 image file>

kucklehead,

A new thoughts occur to me, your 6.6.21 kernel may not work because it is EFI stub kernel. I think kexec do not support PE32 header in the EFI stub kernel. (this is my current theory, still researching this)

If your 6.6.13 kernel image file still exist can you try this command to verify the image file format