ZFS Root Pool Disk and Boot Administration

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ZFS root pool disk and boot administration summary is as follows:

Oracle Solaris 10 and Oracle Solaris 11 11/11:
- SPARC: The OpenBoot PROM (OBP) requires a root pool disk with an SMI (VTOC) label.
- SPARC: If replacing a root pool disk with zpool replace, apply boot blocks manually, as follows:
```
# installboot -F zfs /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/zfs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s0
```
- SPARC and x86: Attaching a root pool disk with zpool attach to create a mirrored root pool requires the following slice syntax:
```
# zpool attach rpool c0t5000CCA03C5A5314d0s0 c0t5000CCA03C5A5340d0s0
```
  If you attempt to attach a disk with an EFI label to a root pool disk that requires an SMI (VTOC) label, you will need to relabel it manually before being reattached, as shown in the following example:
```
# format -L vtoc -d c1t0d0
Searching for disks...done
selecting c1t0d0
[disk formatted]
c1t0d0 is labeled with VTOC successfully.
```
  Be very careful that you are relabeling the correct disk because this command does no error checking. If you force an SMI (VTOC) label on a disk that is intended for the root pool, the default partition table is applied. This means that the default s0 slice size might be too small. For more information about changing partition or slice sizes, see How to Label a Disk in Managing Devices in Oracle Solaris 11.2 .
- x86: GRUB Legacy and a root pool disk requires an SMI (VTOC) label.
- x86: If replacing a root pool disk with the zpool replacecommand, apply the boot blocks manually as follows:
```
# installgrub /boot/grub/stage1 /boot/grub/stage2 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s0
```
- x86: The root pool disk must be less than 2 TBs.
Starting with Oracle Solaris 11.1:
- SPARC: OBP requires a root pool disk with an SMI (VTOC) label.
- SPARC: If replacing a root pool disk with zpool replace, apply boot blocks manually, as shown in the following example:
```
# bootadm install-bootloader
```
- SPARC: Attaching a root pool disk with zpool attach to create a mirrored root pool requires the following the slice syntax:
```
# zpool attach rpool c0t5000CCA03C5A5314d0s0 c0t5000CCA03C5A5340d0s0
```
- x86: GRUB 2 and root pool disk has an EFI label in most cases.
- x86: If replacing a root pool disk with zpool replace, apply the boot blocks manually as follows:
```
# bootadm install-bootloader
```
- x86: Attaching a root pool disk with zpool attach to create a mirrored root pool requires the whole disk syntax, as this example shows:
```
# zpool attach rpool c0t5000CCA03C5A5314d0 c0t5000CCA03C5A5340d0 
```
Oracle Solaris 10 and 11 Releases:

Using the zpool attach command applies the boot blocks automatically.