no pools available after upgrade from 8.3 to 9.1.1

[sasonic]

So I did an upgrade this morning and it appears that it updated without issue. After the upgrade: I get zfs - status is unknown. I tried to detach and auto-import, but nothing shows up on the drop down list. if it helps - freenas is on a VM environment with direct lun access.

Based on other posts, here is the diagnostics I can report on:
zpool import returns back with nothing
zpool status return back with "no pools available"
smartctl -a /dev/da1-4 all come back clean
zdb comes back with my pool listed and nothing I could see startling there.
camcontrol devlist lists the four drives (and two vmware devices)

so the drives look mounted and all but no pools show up under /mnt (which i assume makes sense with the "no pools available"). Not sure what to look for in the startup log... but nothing was obviously related (though i definitely don't know my way around linux)



Not sure where to go from here.. except maybe do a brand new install of 8.3 and hope the auto-import works (aka some device showing up there).

 

[cyberjock]

it helps - freenas is on a VM environment with direct lun access.

Based on other posts, here is the diagnostics I can report on:
zpool import returns back with nothing
zpool status return back with "no pools available"
smartctl -a /dev/da1-4 all come back clean
zdb comes back with my pool listed and nothing I could see startling there.
camcontrol devlist lists the four drives (and two vmware devices)

All of that tells me that you are in trouble.

Virtualizing is a good way to have your pool suddenly fail. That's why threads like http://forums.freenas.org/threads/p...duction-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/#post58364 were created.

I'm not sure if there is a fix for your situation. Some people have pulled the disks out of the server and run FreeNAS on bare metal. Some have gotten their data backed, mots don't.

 

[Dusan]

You can try running zpool import -D (to cover the case that the pool is marked as destroyed for some reason).

 

[sasonic]

to clarify, the storage drives are mapped raw luns so freenas does in fact have direct access to the drives (freenas itself is a virtualized OS) so I believe most of the "reasons why virtualization is bad" is moot.

 

[cyberjock]

to clarify, the storage drives are mapped raw luns so freenas does in fact have direct access to the drives (freenas itself is a virtualized OS) so I believe most of the "reasons why virtualization is bad" is moot.

RDM is actually the MAIN reason why FreeNAS should NOT be virtualized. :(

In effect, if you aren't using the PCI passthrough via VT-d technology you are not doing it properly.

 

[sasonic]

I can look into that but for now, I would like to focus on troubleshooting why the upgraded OS doesn't see the zpool. I did a new install of 8.3 and everything is up. The pool/data itself isn't the issue (no sudden fail from what I can see). The 9.9.1 snapshot though doesn't see the zpool in any way.

 

[cyberjock]

The best advice I can give is to roll back to 8.3 if that worked. I really can't provide much help(and usually forum users don't bother trying) because the abstraction from the virtualization layer makes most of the commands we'd run lie to us. Several users have tried to roll back only to find that the pool won't work on 8.3 in a VM anymore either.

Virtualization seems to be the common problem and nobody has the answer. That's why we tell people not to do it or they're on their own.

The moderator that wrote that thread I linked above put this..

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting a few. But the conclusion is this: it's perfectly fine to experiment with FreeNAS in a VM. However, if you run it in production, put your valuable data on it, and then something bad happens, and you absolutely positively must get your data back, there probably won't be a lot of help available from the forum. We've seen it happen again, and again, and again. Sigh.

He was dead serious too. There really isn't a lot of help you're likely to get from here. You aren't the first to have this problem. Unfortunately, I know you won't be the last.

Can I assume this is a home server with no backup?