How to clear external drive for temporary replication backups

[jengle]

I have a 3 Tib drive (in an USB holder) that I used to backup one of my pools during setup. Now I want to use the same drive to backup 3 specific datasets. I used fdisk to remove the old partitions with w(rite) command but when I rebooted they were still there. Then I went ahead and mounted the single drive (striped) and removed the datasets using the UI (didn't think of that first time around) but leaving the original pool name extMain. When I do my replication task I get two layers of directories but no subdirectories below that and no data files. total space used is just a few kb. Thinking that this may be a permissions issue, I created a dataset 'bu' to send the replication to but still didn't get any further. And then I tried to set the owner & user to admin for the bu dataset and I get:

Saving Permissions​

Error: [EFAULT] [Errno 30] Read-only file system: '/mnt/extMain/bu'

I would prefer using this drive as my only other available drive is a reserve 4 Tib drive. What I would really like to do is just 'erase' the drive and start fresh for this task but have not found an answer searching the forums. I must be missing something basic this does not seem like it should be difficult!

Thanks!

 

[NickF]

Make a new pool on the drive with only one disk, but do it using the GUI instead of using fdisk. I think you are thinking too hard into this, and if you just use the UI so the middleware is aware of the new pool then it should work fine.

 

[jengle]

Thanks @NickF I actually did try that at first, which is why I tried the fdisk approach. I was unable to mount it to a pool with a different name. I have no doubt at this point that I'm thinking too hard !

So (just now) I tried to offline the drive from the pool to see if I could attach it to a different drive and I get:

CallError​

[EZFS_NOREPLICAS] cannot offline /dev/disk/by-partuuid/2ad0d345-a834-449f-a952-e6a7ce75f679: no valid replicas

Error: concurrent.futures.process._RemoteTraceback: """ Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/zfs.py", line 273, in __zfs_vdev_operation op(target, *args) File "libzfs.pyx", line 465, in libzfs.ZFS.__exit__ File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/zfs.py", line 273, in __zfs_vdev_operation op(target, *args) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/zfs.py", line 328, in <lambda> self.__zfs_vdev_operation(name, label, lambda target: target.offline()) File "libzfs.pyx", line 2294, in libzfs.ZFSVdev.offline libzfs.ZFSException: cannot offline /dev/disk/by-partuuid/2ad0d345-a834-449f-a952-e6a7ce75f679: no valid replicas During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python3.9/concurrent/futures/process.py", line 243, in _process_worker r = call_item.fn(*call_item.args, **call_item.kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/worker.py", line 115, in main_worker res = MIDDLEWARE._run(*call_args) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/worker.py", line 46, in _run return self._call(name, serviceobj, methodobj, args, job=job) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/worker.py", line 40, in _call return methodobj(*params) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/worker.py", line 40, in _call return methodobj(*params) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema.py", line 1322, in nf return func(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/zfs.py", line 328, in offline self.__zfs_vdev_operation(name, label, lambda target: target.offline()) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/zfs.py", line 275, in __zfs_vdev_operation raise CallError(str(e), e.code) middlewared.service_exception.CallError: [EZFS_NOREPLICAS] cannot offline /dev/disk/by-partuuid/2ad0d345-a834-449f-a952-e6a7ce75f679: no valid replicas """ The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 196, in call_method result = await self.middleware._call(message['method'], serviceobj, methodobj, params, app=self) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1335, in _call return await methodobj(*prepared_call.args) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema.py", line 1318, in nf return await func(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema.py", line 1186, in nf res = await f(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/pool.py", line 1157, in offline await self.middleware.call('zfs.pool.offline', pool['name'], found[1]['guid']) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1386, in call return await self._call( File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1343, in _call return await self._call_worker(name, *prepared_call.args) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1349, in _call_worker return await self.run_in_proc(main_worker, name, args, job) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1264, in run_in_proc return await self.run_in_executor(self.__procpool, method, *args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1249, in run_in_executor return await loop.run_in_executor(pool, functools.partial(method, *args, **kwargs)) middlewared.service_exception.CallError: [EZFS_NOREPLICAS] cannot offline /dev/disk/by-partuuid/2ad0d345-a834-449f-a952-e6a7ce75f679: no valid replicas

I have removed all replicas and snapshots. So I shut down the system, disconnected the external drive, and powered it back up. When I try to create a new pool with the one drive I get:

FAILED​

[EFAULT] Partition type 6a898cc3-1dd2-11b2-99a6-080020736631 not found on sdg

Error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/job.py", line 426, in run await self.future File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/job.py", line 461, in __run_body rv = await self.method(*([self] + args)) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema.py", line 1186, in nf res = await f(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/schema.py", line 1318, in nf return await func(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/pool.py", line 765, in do_create await self.middleware.call('pool.format_disks', job, disks) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1386, in call return await self._call( File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1335, in _call return await methodobj(*prepared_call.args) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/pool_/format_disks.py", line 33, in format_disks await asyncio_map(format_disk, disks.items(), limit=16) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/utils/asyncio_.py", line 16, in asyncio_map return await asyncio.gather(*futures) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/utils/asyncio_.py", line 13, in func return await real_func(arg) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/pool_/format_disks.py", line 26, in format_disk devname = await self.middleware.call( File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1386, in call return await self._call( File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1346, in _call return await self.run_in_executor(prepared_call.executor, methodobj, *prepared_call.args) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/main.py", line 1249, in run_in_executor return await loop.run_in_executor(pool, functools.partial(method, *args, **kwargs)) File "/usr/lib/python3.9/concurrent/futures/thread.py", line 52, in run result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/disk_/disk_info.py", line 82, in gptid_from_part_type raise CallError(f'Partition type {part_type} not found on {disk}') middlewared.service_exception.CallError: [EFAULT] Partition type 6a898cc3-1dd2-11b2-99a6-080020736631 not found on sdg

Then did an export/disconnect which destroyed the old pool, and I created a new pool with the one drive and got the same error as above. It does not get mounted now.

Rebooted to make sure I have cleared everything out and got the same error as above.

 

[jengle]

switched to using rsync to another server.