> On Apr 12, 2016, at 1:39 PM, Dirk Steinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> The root file system actually resides on a ram disk, which cannot be used for 
> booting.

The RAM disk contains a UFS file system.

> 
> If I do not boot from USB or PXE, I like to put the boot files
> (kernel and boot_archive, plus a few GRUB files) onto my zones
> pool. I agree that one could use UFS, but that requires slicing/
> partitioning the disk making things more complex than necessary.
> Using a whole-disk pool is much easier.

This is a significant change in SmartOS architecture and IMHO, a significantly 
inferior
approach.

At InterModal Data, we have a different approach. We do install on one or more 
"boot disks" and keep a grub menu set for locally storing OS images (UFS in 
RAMdisk
image). However, this is not a general-purpose solution. In our world, the 
"zones" pool
is quite small, typically 32G or less. Thus we can easily accomodate "boot 
disks" that
are 64GB or more, though it is very rare for us to see more than 200GB. There 
are a
number of other constraints that impact us, that are not general purpose.

So, can you have a boot image area that cohabitates a single disk? Yes, but 
there is
a fair amount of work involved and every step brings you farther away from the 
easy,
scalable method used by default in SmartOS. You'll be better served by burning 
a USB
stick and taking a long lunch.
 -- richard




-------------------------------------------
smartos-discuss
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/184463/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/184463/25769125-55cfbc00
Modify Your Subscription: 
https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=25769125&id_secret=25769125-7688e9fb
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

Reply via email to