SOLVED Error: attempt to write a readonly database. At boot time and nothing works.

[asimov-solensan]

Hello,

I really need help here because I fear that my server just died. I shutdown it (clean) to check a fan that was making noise and at booting again it delays for very long then at some point I get this message:

Error: attempt to write a readonly database

Eventually it boots but it has no IP and lacks several tap configurations I got, and as consequence no jails nor virtual machines boot. And I'm afraid to try anything and make the problem worse. And I just found a thread that says that rebooting should solve the problem, bu it happens to me every time.

So far I know I saw this error just a month ago, but also an error in the boot raid (USB sticks), and after replacing the faulty USB everything went fine and updated to 11.2 and did many thing on it without issue. Also rebooted several times and nothing was wrong.

Now it happens with both USB sticks and I don't know what to do. Is it mounting boot device in readonly? Can I dd to another memory stick and will work if the new one is healthy?

Thanks to ipmi I have got access to the shell

I really prefer not to do anything before asking. Thanks for the help

 

[dlavigne]

It does sound like the boot device failed. You can test this by reinstalling the same version to a new USB stick. If that boots, you can then restore your config and be back in business.

 

[asimov-solensan]

I always have got a recent backup but never used one. Will all my virtual machines and jails be correctly detected? What about jails using warden?

Still I would like to know why both sticks fails and be sure that none of them have errors before reinstalling again (in a faulty media).

 

[Meyers]

Try booting back into 11.1. I have one system with dual USB that 11.2 will NOT run on.

 

[asimov-solensan]

The thing is that it boots. It booted with 11.2 and have been working for a month, and rebooted several times because I was playing with tunables.

It's just this time that everything went nuts.

Anyhow I configured again the interface and checked that there was a faulty USB again, and that makes 3 in two years.

With the "healthy" one it took almost half an hour to boot and returned some other errors, so, clearly something is wrong here. I have the screenshots in another computer.

So after half an hour everything went just fine, share, jails, VMs, I can't notice any degradation on the service. So, I'm going to guess that USB sticks are not suited my use case and will move to SSD disks. I will keep this thread updated with the process in case it helps someone in the future.

 

[Meyers]

My system booted too. It was that the I/O to my USB drives was so slow that I'd get the same errors you were getting. Booting took 20+ minutes. The system was so slow as to be unusable.

playing with tunables

That might be the problem there. I stick to autotune settings.

The general recommendation I've been getting is to stick to SSD drives so that might be best either way. I'd move all my systems to SSD but I don't have control of the hardware.

 

[asimov-solensan]

Well, after a week with my boot pool with SSD drives I must say that this is the way to go if someone gets this same error.

By the way I'm still using USB3 interfaces and boot speed, resilvering and everything works splendid. I guess can't get full performance from disks this way but I don't need anything better right now.

 

[pro lamer]

I'm still using USB3 interfaces

Do you mean your boot SSD is connected by an USB adapter? Is it still working fine? What is the adapter manufacturer and model?

Sent from my phone

 

[asimov-solensan]

Well it works wonderfully, even the resilverig took a breeze, where regular USB sticks took like nine hours. I'm aware that I'm not getting close to SSD max speed but still USB3 speed should be more than enough for home use.

I just got one of the cheapest one on amazon (spain). If it breaks I will just replace it, here is the model:

https://www.amazon.es/Posugear-Sopp...ords=caja+usb&qid=1554748624&s=gateway&sr=8-3

You seem surprised, should I expect any problem with this setup? Any metrics or logs worth to check if everything is alright?

 

[pro lamer]

model:

https://www.amazon.es/Posugear-Sopp...ords=caja+usb&qid=1554748624&s=gateway&sr=8-3

UASP capable and JMicron onboard - sounds nice :)

You seem surprised, should I expect any problem with this setup?

I hope not. I'm glad it works :) There are some discussions in this forums regarding using anything USB attached for drives and I'm looking for more and more opinions and experienced testimonies. Thank you for yours :)

And USB3 is told not to work with FreeNAS well (ie to work in USB2 mode). Does yours work in 2.0 mode?

My private noob opinion so far is:
Better a USB attached disk than a USB pendrive.

Any metrics or logs worth to check if everything is all right?

I'm no help here, sorry :(

Sent from my phone

 

[asimov-solensan]

Code:

da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus7 target 0 lun 0
da0: <sobetter EXT 0204> Fixed Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device
da0: Serial Number 5002627682863601
da0: 400.000MB/s transfers
da0: 114473MB (234441648 512 byte sectors)
da0: quirks=0x2<NO_6_BYTE>
da1 at umass-sim1 bus 1 scbus8 target 0 lun 0
da1: <sobetter EXT 0204> Fixed Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device
da1: Serial Number 5002627682864422
da1: 400.000MB/s transfers
da1: 114473MB (234441648 512 byte sectors)
da1: quirks=0x2<NO_6_BYTE>

You won't get 400MB/s with USB2, so I'm pretty confident it's taking advantage of the USB3 speeds