Failed to select the ZFS volume type
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The installer is giving me an error that I "Failed to select the ZFS volume type." It never asked (netgate-installer-v1.0-RC-amd64-20240919-1435.iso -- who ships the same release candidate for 3+ months?!!)
Everything matches up with what I'm seeing in the walkthrough (https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/install/install-walkthrough.html), until I get to the ZFS configuration. I fill out all of the networking configuration questions that it should be able to pull from the configuration file it should have loaded.
The last non-error screen is where I select ZFS for a file system and GPT for a partition scheme.
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/_images/netinstaller-filesystem-partition.pngI never see any of the questions under the ZFS section of the installer walkthrough (https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/install/install-zfs.html). Instead I get a "pfSense ZFS Configuration" error "Failed to select the ZFS volume type."
I have 2 SSDs of 256GB each. I can see them in FreeBSD. I wiped the disk first 128MB of each disk (headers and then some). I rewrote empty GPT partition tables on them. I've rebooted (and rebooted). When I started, one of the 2 disks was still configured as part of a ZFS mirror w/ MBR, and the other had whatever they shipped from the factory.
The NICs all seem fine, except my LAN port is disconnected until I can get this installed & replace my working router.
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Wiping just the start of a disk isn't sufficient. There can also be metadata at the end of a disk, which can lead to problems like you're seeing:
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/multiple-disks.html#clear-the-disk
Normally the installer would be able to work around most things of that nature, but not always.
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@jimp I previously wrote a new, empty GPT partition table on each disk,. Is there something wrong with the 'gpart create -s gpt' command on FreeBSD that wouldn't clear the GPT data at the end of the disk?
Either way, I wiped the entirety of both disks with zeros, clearing every byte of GPT and ZFS data. Afterwards, I manually ran sync, then rebooted. Even after clearing every byte & rebooting, it still has the same issue.
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What do the disks show up as in the OS? What device names, make/model/type, etc.
Also what shows in
sysctl kern.disks
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@jimp The disks are 2 Silicon Power A55 SSDs, (256GB). The second disk is plugged into a SATA-2 port, because the motherboard only has a single SATA-3 port.
camcontrol identify ada0
pass0: SPCC Solid State Disk SBFM81.3 ACS-4 ATA SATA 3.x device
pass0: 600.000MB/s transfers (SATA 3.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)
...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075RJS55Dcamcontrol indentify ada1
pass1: SPCC Solid State Disk VE1R900F ACS-3 ATA SATA 3.x device
pass1: 300.000MB/s transfers (SATA 2.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)
...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQCH4RSD (a more recent replacement drive)When I type 'sysctl kern.disks' it shows me
kern.disks: da1 da0 ada1 ada0