ZFS¶

This section describes items specific to ZFS partitioning.

Pool Type / Disks¶

Select Pool Type / Disks and the installer will prompt for the Virtual Device Type. ZFS supports multiple disks in various ways for redundancy and/or extra capacity. Though using multiple disks with ZFS is software RAID, it is quite reliable and better than using a single disk.

The available types are:

stripe: A single disk, or multiple disks added together to make one larger disk (RAID 0).

Note

For firewalls with a single target disk, this is the correct choice.
mirror: Two or more disks that all contain the same content for redundancy. Can keep operating even if one disk dies. (RAID 1)
raid10: RAID 1+0, n x 2-way mirrors. A combination of stripes and mirrors, which gives redundancy and extra capacity. Can lose one disk from any pair at any time.
raidzX: Single, Double, or Triple redundant RAID. Uses 1, 2, or 3 parity disks with a pool to give extra capacity and redundancy, so either one, two, or three disks can fail before a pool is compromised. Though similar to RAID 5 and 6, the RAIDZ design has significant differences.

Select a type and press Enter

Virtual Device Type¶

Select Disks¶

Next, the installer prompts for which disks it will include in the selected Virtual Device Type.

Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight a disk and Space to select disks. For mirrors or RAID types, select enough disks to fulfill the requirements for the chosen type.

Warning

Select a disk even if there is only one in the list!

Select OK with the left or right arrow keys.

Example disk selection for ZFS mirror utilizing two disks¶

When complete, the installer will return to the main ZFS configuration screen.

Partition Scheme¶

Choose an alternate Partition Scheme only if the default, GPT (BIOS) will not work. The possible choices include:

GPT (BIOS): The GUID partition table layout and BIOS booting. Used by most modern x86 hardware.

Note

Try this method first as it is the most widely compatible choice.
GPT (UEFI): GPT with UEFI boot loader.
GPT (BIOS+UEFI): GPT with both BIOS and UEFI booting.
MBR (BIOS): Legacy MBR style partitions with BIOS booting.
GPT + Active (BIOS): GPT with the boot slice set active, with BIOS booting.
GPT + Lenovo Fix (BIOS): GPT with a Lenovo-specific boot fix.

Other Options¶

The other options on the main ZFS configuration screen can be left at their default values. Certain scenarios may call for using them, but they are otherwise options.

Pool Name: The name of the ZFS pool created by the installer. Leave this at the default value.
Encrypt Disks: Enable encryption of the filesystem contents.

Warning

Encrypting disks will prompt for the encryption passphrase at each boot, which means each boot must be attended at the console.
Swap Size: The amount of disk space dedicated to swap space (virtual memory). This is optional. Commonly set to 2x the available RAM in the firewall, but with smaller disks that may be too large.
Mirror Swap: When using a mirrored Virtual Device Type, this also mirrors the swap space contents between disks. The default is to consider the swap space on each disk separately. In most cases the contents of swap are not important enough to warrant mirroring and the degraded performance it would impose.
Encrypt Swap: Encrypts the contents of the swap partitions, in addition to data. This is more secure, especially if the firewall has particularly sensitive data in memory, but degrades swap performance.

Finish¶

To complete the installation:

Move the selection back to Install
Highlight Select for the action at the bottom of the screen
Press Enter to continue.
Select Yes to confirm the target disk selection, and to acknowledge that the contents of the target disk(s) will be destroyed.

ZFS Confirmation¶

Proceed to Continue with the Install.