FreeBSD boot from root pool larger than 1Tb/cannot read MOS/all block copies unavailable

[Eugene M. Zheganin]

Hello,

recently I found another server that was running 12.x and became 
unbootable because of the famous "cannot read MOS/all block copies 
unavailable/etc" gptzfsboot message which can be randomly displayed when 
boot blocks migrate beyond 1st Tb on a large root pool. I managed to 
boot the server from CD (pointing out the root pool with 
vfs.root.mountfrom) and then upgraded it to the recent 13.0, where is 
showed no signs of being able to boot from disks again (so I'm treating 
this as still not fixed, and probably as won't be fixed issue).

Since this issue is like 10 years old and I see no light at the end of 
the tunnel, could the bsdinstall at least be made aware about this so it 
won't permit the large root pool creation by default ? Because as far as 
I remember there's still no option in it to create a pool smaller than 
the disk, and I have to use the custom installation script in order to 
do this.

I'm asking because unfortunately recently I've found two more of these 
time bombs among my servers.


Thanks.


Eugene.


P.S. There have been speculations that switching to the UEFI loader may 
help, because it's more functional and probably can see the migrated 
over 1Tb boot blocks, can anyone confirm this ?