ZFS on Arch Linux
Future development of archzfs #555
Replies: 152 comments 62 replies
-
|
I was just coming here to ask if @minextu was on a long vacation. Might be time to try the aur/zfs-dkms package again. :| |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Yes, at this point, unless someone has the bandwidth to fork this repo and take over ownership, I would consider it done. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
well - building the packages works smoothly |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
i've also gone the linux-lts route, which openzfs will very likely support without major issues as for bulding zfs-linux-lts, in addition to using this repo, i've also found some other ways, including the one i settled for: a docker to build them (https://jbrio.net/posts/5-ways-archlinux-zfs/) but, hopefully minextu can get back in the game, maybe he's no longer into archlinux or openzfs, maybe he has no bandwidth for this or has other life priorities 🤷♂️ |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
v2.2.5 came out on the 6th, that's more than 2 weeks now. AFAIK nothing is holding the release back (the recent kmod issue looks fixed now too (commit reverted)). No v2.2.5 release for lts could mean the maintainer was afk for the usual holiday length of 10-14 days (no commits indeed in that time). The alternative solution would be to use the AUR. @minextu Did no commits for 10 days, but then has been doing every day commits from 19.08 to 22.08 into a private repo again. If he no longer maintains then he should mention it. I think he was afk a bit and I expect the 2.2.5 release within the next days/week. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I hope not. I think the framework for this works well, it just needs someone to continue shepherding it as versions update. Not sure if @minextu had other requirements going on, but maybe they'd be willing to add other committers to the repository to help out if they aren't available? |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I have proposed to help multiple times here... I will probably switch back to the AUR if this repo dies. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I'm hoping to move the conversation on the state of this project and possible avenues forward to this topic, vice in the current PR for OepnZFS 2.2.6. If we were to want to actually fork this, it's probably important to note that the archzfs.com domain would definitely not come along. We'd definitely need to ask to mark the project orphaned per here from the Arch Wiki. Once it's marked Orphan, another AUR user can ask to adopt it and thereby upload a new PKGBUILD. The Arch Wiki Page zfs will need to be updated, along with the definition for the archzfs user repository entry here . Finally, the infrastructure would need to be updated. Now in this case, we're talking about forking on github, updating the package signing key, ensuring it's distributed and linked, starting an alternative CI server, as well as seed mirror for the repository. Anyway, I think it's worth seeing if @minextu is still wiling to potentially bring on a subset of active users as maintainers to help speed up updates. I think it's worth waiting a few more days to get some response. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I actually emailed @minextu at the address I found via (I think?) the AUR, but haven't gotten a reply. :( This isn't an AUR package, so really "forking" it would just be cloning the repo and getting it all setup and working again and then updating all the wiki details. Maybe waiting for archzfs.com domain to expire and not renew? |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
I certainly agree that I think most people access this through the unofficial repo. There is a AUR PKGBUILD though, so it's probably worth keeping it updated. It appears to mostly be a matter of changing version numbers. We could certainly also wait for the archzfs.com domain to expire, but who knows if it's on auto renewals or something similar. Also, it doesn't expire until March of 2025, and I think most people would like to see some resolution this before that. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Are you talking about aur/zfs-dkms for example? That is a different package from archzfs's package. If you're not, what are you talking about? And to be clear, I mean roughly fork it now and then if the domain expires some time in the future, take it over to help everyone who doesn't know it changes. I wouldn't hold a fork off for the domain. Could maybe even get archzfs.org or net or something if available. :) |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Fortunately, I asked for delegation of kernels.archzfs.com so I can change the records for that anytime. Sadly, it is not the case for the apex archzfs.com itself of course.
I can still "publish" the dependant kernel packages under kernels.archzfs.com. Or any other domains we may come up with later on.
…On Mon, Sep 09, 2024 at 21:00:46-0700, Donald Webster wrote:
Are you talking about [aur/zfs-dkms](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/zfs-dkms) for example? That is a different package from archzfs's package. If you're not, what are you talking about?
And to be clear, I mean roughly fork it *now* and then if the domain expires some time in the future, take it over to help everyone who doesn't know it changes. I wouldn't hold a fork off for the domain. Could maybe even get archzfs.org or net or something if available. :)
--
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#545 (comment)
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Message ID: ***@***.***>
|
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
While I don't think it's used much, there is a PKGBUILD listed and served under the zfs-linux package in the AUR here Probably not the biggest deal to change, but it is listed there. Also, yes, I understand this project is intended to be used as a user Pacman repository, which is what archzfs-ci builds and deploys. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
I personally feel bad forking this without at least some answer from @minextu If you have already discussed and achieved delegation on subdomain from him, do you have any better way to get ahold of him? I've only rarely received responses. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Just chiming in to say that I do use the PKGBUILD for zfs-linux-lts. I have been manually updating the versions when linux-lts gets updated, and this project provides value for me for the tests that are run to validate each version. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I think either preventing people from updating their mainline kernels by means of version requirements on the package(s) or even just restricting the provided modules to LTS kernels are both totally fine policies to enforce on the repo. Nobody is helped by being given access to untested, not officially supported module builds. These policies could easily be weakened or changed later if communication with upstream ZFS brings additional support or clarity to the matter, but until then it would be counterproductive if not worse to try and force mainline builds anyway. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I think the appropriate way to handle this it to only explicitly state and support linux-lts as being stable. I think we should continue the "Live Dangerously" path for the vanilla Arch Kernel, but state that there can/will be breakages or put the onus on the user to only update mainline when they are sure OpenZFS supports the Arch kernel version. This would need to be communicated to users both in the Arch Wiki listing of the user repository, as well as on the archzfs web page/wiki. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I don't think shipping zfs packages that may target an unsupported kernel is a good idea... Besides, using openzfs on non-lts kernel wasn't really a dangerous thing outside of a few rare scenarios, this would be a whole new level of "dangerous", more akin to "don't trust this repo at all"... Imho the vanilla kernel should be targeted as long as it's supported by an official openzfs release. It does mean people may be stuck with an older kernel for a while, but it's far less dangerous than shipping an unsupported module which may break the system/pool for good. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I also suggest: the
So the Optionally, an |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
is it possible to use said |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I support this idea. I’d rather trade off having an unsupported kernel version and a possibly (though unlikely) broken boot than risk data corruption. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Is it safe to use |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I'm not misunderstanding anything actually. archzfs was potentially offering module builds for 6.11 kernels which are not officially supported by ZFS 2.2.6 without explicitly stating this. Besides, I suggested pairing DKMS with the LTS kernel specifically. If as the user states their main concern is with data loss and the current state of archzfs then what I suggested is a perfectly reasonable answer for what a "safe bet" is. The choice of DKMS is for the simple reason that until a few weeks ago or so ago the zfs-linux AUR packages and archzfs as a whole were basically completely unmaintained and out of date. Until things are properly back on track and the relevant places and pages updated and questions around e.g. offering packages for unsupported mainline versions are resolved I would not tell a concerned user to put their trust in the repo. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
dkms is known to have same issues with data security as this "experimental" repo. If I was OP I wouldn't update kernel and zfs until this situation is resolved. If I need to have newest kernel, then run whatever zfs version suits you. Also when you scared about your data you should have backups somewhere... It's so easy to rollback. I can say I recently experienced 2 kernel panics during shutdown and boot with 6.11.9 (I'm not saying it's zfs, should've taken pictures), simple restart fixed it :D, zfs is not showing any problems for now. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I still don't see sny reason for dkms to give a direct answer to OP: what do you mean by "is it safe to uee this repo?"? |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
thanks for the input all 🔥
i have zfs drives set up in a pair. if there is a fire all of my critical data has cloud backups of various forms, but I don't feel a strong need to maintain like an offline copy of several 12TB disks :( . Not the end of the world if i lose it, but i would feel like a real dummy if i lost it because I used "the best filesystem" and it stopped getting maintained :P |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Why do you write the best filesystem in quotation marks? ZFS support is strong in BSD and is in the current state because of the well know licensing issues. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
With time it would be also nice to integrate the updating of the kernel referencing repositories in the CI-pipelines.
…On Wed, Nov 06, 2024 at 15:44:11+0000, Maria wrote:
Is it safe to use `https://github.com/archzfs/archzfs/releases/download/experimental`, instead of the old `http://archzfs.com/$repo/x86_64` repository for the `zfs-linux-zfs`? How will I know when it is safe? It has been awhile since my system was updated.
--
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#555 (comment)
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Message ID: ***@***.***>
|
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I use archzfs on Artix Linux and while I usually have been using the dkms version, all the talk about not nuking my data made we want to switch to the specific kernel version for the mainline and LTS version. I noticed that I cannot do this due to a naming conflict in the dependencies, zfs-linux and I think zfs-linux-lts both specify kernels with '-archlinux' in the full name, where I of course have one with '-artix'. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I just quickly checked and the artix and arch config for linux-lts differs just in That said, ff Artix developers intended to use the arch repos, they would have just re-used the repos as they are - perhaps added a new custom repo with the artix specific items. However, they didn't do that. If you want to use archzfs on artix, I suggest to pull the archlinux kernel as well. The reason is simple - then you will be responsible for using the incompatible version and archzfs devs (who did a great job in the recent weeks to basically resurrect the project) will not have to bear the responsibility for an inevitable dataloss. On top of t hat, the zfs-utils package bundles some systemd services and rules. If artix support would be wanted, these should be provided as openrc scripts instead (or at least dropped). However, if somebody decides to fork the archzfs repo to artixzfs repo, this can easily be changed. I also think the devs would consider adding artix specific packages to this repo if a capable and active maintainers and testers would be found. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Just a few specific points for @n0xena
To make it clear, I know what distro I have chosen, I know what the general differences/aims of this fork are and I personally felt confident to make my initial suggestion, you don't need to quote the Artix webpage back at me, the distros aim was to allow for more, different, init and service management systems while otherwise staying close to arch itself, hence why I can and do use the AUR, the actual Arch repos and this projects repos in my Artix system for years. The fact that the maintainers decided to host their own repos for autonomy reasons and use their different names to avoid namespace conflicts has no compatibility implications in and of itself and I am not sure why you are insisting on this linguistic difference.
This is just a jab, my initial question already included the possibility of me or other Artix users "showing some effort" so to imply that I am just demanding something is silly, I asked and defended my reasoning, nothing more (I already wrote and published my own zfs s6 service files for example). I will make no bones over the fact that I am not versed in the built tools used here and of course would much rather have a bunch of people who are already familiar with the giant project that is ZFS keep an eye on the kernel modules that let me see my data, but that's deference not a demand. @Krakonos |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
@zupatisc TBH The whole reason this doesn't work is stupid. If I understand it correctly, it's the version code that is And since the module has to be compiled for a given kernel version, I don't really see a way to solve this without admitting full support for artix or making a fork. Right now, it looks like you'll be stuck with the DKMS version, which I guess is not that bad option at all - and that can actually have a dependency on |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
@zupatisc, I'm not sure if it's helpful, but I have a set of build scripts that are completely isolated from this project, and not automated in any way. I'm using them while this project is being rebuilt until it's a stable resource. The build scripts are run using podman or docker, and use the AUR packages Out of curiosity, I modified the scripts to use the artixlinux docker image. The zfs packages seemed to build just fine, though I have no idea if the packages will actually work, or if the scripts will require some more modifications. You can see the branch using the artix image here: https://github.com/travishegner/buildzfs/tree/artix If you want to try it out (at your own risk, naturally):
Feel free to swipe these and use them as a starting point for your Artix ZFS automation, if you desire. I likely won't be maintaining this branch, so if you at least intend to use it, I'd recommend a fork for your own version of it (and credit for the work is always appreciated). Good Luck! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
@travishegner Sorry for the later reply, thank you for sharing this, I will take a look at it and see if I can make this work for myself. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Once this work in progress settles down, it might be worth setting up a page (maybe a temporarily wiki on this repo, maybe later on on the arch wiki) with an overview of what can stability can be expected with what combinations of linux and linux-lts in combination with the zfs packages. This overview can then also state what matched the "old" archzfs repo. This way users of the "old archzfs can make an informed decision on whether they go for a more experimental, a similar or a more stable setup. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I'm not sure if it's being discussed yet, but would it be a good idea to maintain an archive/copy of supported kernels, like kernels.archzfs.com used to do? This would greatly help to manage installations in the time periods where |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
For anyone finding this, please note that I have created an archiso that includes both the LTS kernel as well as the openzfs modules for it. My iso will be updated automatically on the 4th day of every month. Using that may be more convenient for users during this time of uncertainty for the archzfs project and whilst the previous package repositories are unavailability. It's available on GitHub for anyone to use. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
although I appreciate the work I personal would advice against installing the OS on any kind of array unless the firmware of the system supports it directly and is able to load a multi-drive array as such - otherwise one has to keep all drives' boot contents in sync so if one drive fails the system can takeover to another drive |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Hi @n0xena. You may have posted your message in reply to the wrong thread. :) |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
no - I actually replied to your project about putting together an archiso install media shipping with zfs in order to make install root on zfs easy - I recommend against both: so - again - although I do appreciate your work - I recommend against it due to several reasons - but that's just my opinion and I figure noting this as a direct comment than as an overall post to this topic is the more correct way to express my concerns |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I just noted: |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Hey, apologies for being absent from this project. I had some personal issues to deal with and avoided everything else for a while including this project. I should've written something earlier, but I'm glad the community took over. Thank you everyone! Looks like the GitHub actions are coming along well, and I feel like those will be much easier to maintain then the custom buildbot we had before. I still won't have time to contribute much at the moment, but I can handover the archzfs.com domain or point it somewhere else when we are ready. The existing buildbot server seems to build everything just fine too still, so we could make a deployment to the old stable repo if required. Anybody part of the Feel free to reach out, I will be reading here from time to time. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
well, 6.12 is now the new lts, is there any zfs version that properly supports it ? 😮
|
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Hello, to be clear, is the plan for the old archzfs repo to begin working again at some point? |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
openzfs/zfs#16850 seems to give us an answer here: |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
so, 2.2.7 is compatible with 6.12 !! 🙌 |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
All packages have been updated to 2.2.7 and pushed to the old stable repository as well as the new experimental one |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I upgraded my system for the first time since all this started, rebooted, all good. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Looks like some Python nonesense causes issues again. Looks like an upstream issue and should be reported there? Or is this arch specific? |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
@l-vanni Thank you! I'm sort of glad it was on our side and not upstream :p |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I'm asking this question not knowing how pacman would deal with this, but should the zfs-utils package version/name be 2.2.7-2 instead of 2.2.7-1 to deal with the python3.12 to python3.13 transition? The current 2.2.7-1 zfs-utils version I have installed has files in /usr/lib/python3.12/site-packages, but the new one has files in /usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages. It doesn't update zfs-utils with pacman -Syu since the version is the same. I haven't tried to reinstall with pacman -S (and I probably won't), but I'm guessing that will possibly leave the old files in /usr/lib/python3.12/site-packages. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
You can reinstall safely it will clean up the old stuff. But yes pkgrel should be incremented I just couldn't find out the correct way to do this when I merged the PR to fix Python things |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Ok, thanks! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
@Doridian the pakrel is adjusted in the <archzfs>/src/kernels/<pack>.sh files like Line 7 in 5ee09c8 |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I see that with a regular interval, new packages are pushed to AUR. However, packages to the (old?) repo are often missing or lagging behind. It seems like the overview of what "stability" to expect from the (old?) repo vs aur vs (?) does not yet exist (or I can't find it). When I'm updating, it currently feels quite tricky. Are there any updates on the state of the different package resources (AUR vs old repo vs new repo(s)) and their expected stability? |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I'm the current zfs-linux maintaner in AUR. The way things are, the zfs-linux package there gets regular manual updates. Life happens, updates might lag a few hours or even days, but they will come. Within the limits of the OpenZFS and the current Arch's kernel compatibility, that is. If the kernel version progresses and OpenZFS compatibility doesn't keep up, there will be a deliberate pause. You can count on an "officially" stable and compatible zfs-linux version in AUR. As for the future, I'm looking forward to automated AUR updates again, as soon as this project gets a viable stable repo. Even if we say that the old repo here is actual and maintained again, that would be fine as far as I'm concerned. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
and others
-
There have been no new packages in months, even for the lts. Should people look for alternative solutions, or is something holding back a release?
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
All reactions