[HOW-TO] Re-install with GEOM_MIRROR for swap

enoch85

Hi!

Just installed pfSense 2.4.2 on a new Firewall and chose to mirror the swap partition which resulted in a GEOM_MIRROR. Both ZFS and the swap are hosted on two SATA-DOM devices with ZFS in a MIRROR.

After some testing I wanted to re-install pfSense to make a clean installation, and when repartitioning the drives as a new ZFS mirror I I ended up with this:
https://imgur.com/a/zrU3X gpart: geom 'ada0': File exists

Whatever I tried I didn't succeed to re-install because the GEOM_MIRROR was mounted during install.

So, how did I solve this?
I figured that I could hash out the mount in /etc/fstab, reboot and then destroy the GEOM_MIRROR with

gmirror stop swap
gmirror destroy swap

I then rebooted again from USB and successfully installed a new clean pfSense system.

So basically I did this:
1. Boot as normal
2. Press 8 to access shell
3. vi /etc/fstab
4. Comment out the /dev/mirrir/swap
5. Reboot
6. press 8 to access shell
7. gmirror stop swap && gmirror destroy swap
8. Reboot with USB
9. Re-install

Hope it helps someone out there.

TO THE DEVS
I think that you should automatically unmount any drives that are mounted in the installer to be able to skip the above steps. Please fix this "bug" in the upcoming releases.

TauCeti

Thank you so much for posting! You helped me. I had to perform some additional steps and am also posting in case it helps another poor soul:

Setup: ZFS-Auto; RAID Type: Mirrored; Number of Drives: 2; Swap Mirrored: Yes; Other options left as default.

Problem: Attempting a fresh install of pfsense 2.4.3 on x86 hardware. Same error as reported by: enoch85 gpart: geom ‘ada0’: File exists

Same settings were used for the initial and then refresh install.

I learned that the problem is that I had to manually delete all of the existing ZFS partitions (why can't the installer do this?). Annoyingly, if you try to delete or destroy a mounted partition the error message gpart gives you is: Device busy, which is really unhelpful. I could delete the all partitions except for the swap ones (because the installer mounts them). Adding OPs commands resolved this for me. The full suite of commands I had to use to allow me to reinstall were:

gmirror stop swap
gmirror destroy swap

gpart delete -i1 ada0
gpart delete -i2 ada0
gpart delete -i3 ada0
gpart delete -i4 ada0

gpart delete -i1 ada1
gpart delete -i2 ada1
gpart delete -i3 ada1
gpart delete -i4 ada1

gpart destroy ada0
gpart destroy ada1

stewarrh

Just wanted to say THANK YOU for listing out these commands. Worked perfectly in fixing my "gpart: geom 'ada0': File exists" problem.

pfsenseuser01

Created an account to just say THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Confirmed the above worked for me just like @stewarrh

zoltar

Thx very much to both. Its my first installation in baremetall and fail.
I had created the mirror and encrypted the disks and the swap and the error "gpart: geom 'nvd0': File exists" appeared when trying to reinstall.
I have been able to delete the partitions.