diff --git a/wiki/articles/zfs-macos-arch-linux-dual-boot.qwk b/wiki/articles/zfs-macos-arch-linux-dual-boot.qwk index f300af6..4309812 100644 --- a/wiki/articles/zfs-macos-arch-linux-dual-boot.qwk +++ b/wiki/articles/zfs-macos-arch-linux-dual-boot.qwk @@ -1,11 +1,11 @@ [[toc]] -## Preface +# Preface Having had some failed system updates on my MacBook Pro5,5 that caused Mac OS to be nigh unusable, I decided to swap out the original 500GB HDD for a much smaller -- but much faster -- 128GB SSD I had on hand. Although this is certainly a size constraint, I keep majority of my large data elsewhere and can easily access them via remote sharing or various web interfaces, so it is a moot point. -## The Notion +# The Notion The original idea was to have three major partitions: Mac OS High Sierra, Arch Linux, and a shared partition that would store my user/home directory. The initial setup and install -- which took some time due to learning how to setup rEFInd and much fury at the more modern Disk Utility.app's insane pie chart partitioning system -- used HFS+ for High Sierra, Ext4 for Arch, and HFS+ for the shared partition. The total partitions, with the important self-made ones noted, were: @@ -20,25 +20,30 @@ The total partitions, with the important self-made ones noted, were: Before and after each of the Tyger, Lyon, and Lyger partitions I also placed 128MB of free space as per Apple's recommendations. -## The Problem +# The Problem After the initial install of both Arch Linux and Mac OS -- along with rEFInd -- I was met with a potential problem. HFS+ write access under Linux is experimental and must be enabled with the force option during mount. Although I was uncertain as to what potential issues could arise from forcing R/W HFS+ access, as it seemed to work during initial tests, I did not feel comfortable with keeping HFS+ as the shared partition in the event of file loss or corruption. After an initial review of the potentially shared options of NTFS, HFS+ R/W or using EXT4 via FUSE on Mac OS, I came to the conclusion that none of these were very good options. In the case of HFS+, it was uncertain what extended use would lead to, and in the case of EXT4, the only reliable EXT3/EXT4 R/W "driver" came at a bit of a cost (not much, by any means). NTFS was denied on the principle of it -- if I was triple booting, NTFS might have been the choice, although permission incompatibility would probably deny the shared user directory design. With this, I then thought of another project I was working on... -## The Solution +# The Solution Having recently delved into ZFS -- a filesystem I hadn't touched since late-2000s with Solaris -- for a Debian office server, I realized that the answer to my problems could potentially be **ZFS**. A quick search revealed that the [OpenZFS on OS X](https://openzfsonosx.org) project had matured much since my last viewing (as I had noticed of the [ZFS on Linux](https://zfsonlinux.org) project some weeks prior). I began first by installing and setting it up on Arch Linux, following the guide [here](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ZFS). Once this was complete, I simply issued the basic commands to setup a zpool: - sudo zpool create Lyon /dev/sda5 + sudo zpool create Lyon /dev/sda4 -With this, the zpool *Lyon* was created, allowing me to copy over my home directory and begin using it by setting my entry in `/etc/passwd` to point to the appropriate Lyon zfs volume. I rebooted into Mac OS and issued the standard `sudo zpool import` and discovered that the Linux-made ZFS pool had setup an extended Linux-centric option that rendered it only able to mounted as read-only in Mac OS. This would not do, so I issued `sudo zpool destroy Lyon` and recreated it on Mac OS. With this in place, I switched back to Linux and confirmed that it had R/W access to the same pool. +With this, the zpool *Lyon* was created, allowing me to copy over my home directory and begin using it by setting my entry in `/etc/passwd` to point to the appropriate Lyon zfs volume. I rebooted into Mac OS and issued the standard `sudo zpool import` and discovered that the Linux-made ZFS pool had setup an extended Linux-centric option that rendered it only able to mounted as read-only in Mac OS. This would not do, so I issued `sudo zpool destroy Lyon` and recreated it on Mac OS with `sudo zpool create Lyon /dev/disk0s4`. With this in place, I switched back to Linux and confirmed that it had R/W access to the same pool. -With the zpool working and visible between both, I decided to set up a generic *Users* volume within the *Lyon* zpool in the event of adding additional volumes or otherwise. This was merely a matter of issuing `zfs create Lyon/Users`, moving the Mac OS partition's *Users* contents to it, and setting up the appropriate mount paths. I additionally enabled the *com.apple.mimic_hfs* setting in the event that I might run into problems otherwise: `sudo zfs set com.apple.mimic_hfs=on Lyon/Users`. +With the zpool working and visible between both, I decided to set up a generic *Users* volume within the *Lyon* zpool in the event of adding additional volumes or otherwise. This was merely a matter of issuing: + + sudo zfs create Lyon/Users + sudo zfs set com.apple.mimic_hfs=on Lyon/Users + +and thereafter moving the Mac OS partition's *Users* contents to it and setting up the appropriate mount paths. As noted, I additionally enabled the *com.apple.mimic_hfs* setting in the event that I might run into problems with programs such as Photos (as indicated by the OpenZFS wiki). On Mac OS, I backed up the root */Users* directory, deleted the original, issued `zfs set mountpoint=/Users Lyon/Users`, then moved the original */Users/* contents into the mounted share. @@ -46,12 +51,12 @@ On Linux, I logged in as root, simply used the same */Users/* mount point and se With all this in place -- and omitting some some minor mistakes along the way -- I safely rebooted back to Mac OS. However, upon attempting to login, it seemed the ZFS filesystem *Lyon/Users* was not automatically mounting on boot. To solve this -- and perhaps this is the wrong way to go about automounting ZFS -- I created two files responsible for mounting *Lyon/Users* on boot: -### /usr/sbin/mount-Lyon +#### /usr/sbin/mount-Lyon #!/bin/bash zfs mount Lyon/Users -### /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/net.kettek.Lyon.plist +#### /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/net.kettek.Lyon.plist