ZFS cannot import rpool no such pool available - fix Proxmox boot problem

After installing Proxmox VE on a ZFS mirror, there may be problems importing the ZFS Mirror Pool on reboot. In such cases you get into the busybox shell of initramfs. This article shows how to fix the problem by inserting a short wait (SLEEP parameter).

Problem

The Proxmox system does not boot because the rpool created by Proxmox could not be imported because it was not found.

Command: /sbin/zpool import -N "rpool"
Message: cannot import 'rpool' : no such pool available
Error: 1
Failed to import pool 'rpool'.
Manually import the pool and exit.

Cause

The disks are not fully addressable at the time of the ZFS pool import and therefore the rpool cannot be imported.​

Solution

Manually import the zpool with the name rpool and then boot the system again with exit. Afterwards you can change the ZFS defaults, so that before and after the mounting of the ZFS pool 5 seconds will be waited.

# ZFS rpool is imported manually

zpool import -N rpool
exit

# ZFS defaults are changed

nano etc/default/zfs

# ZFS sleep parameters are set to 5

ZFS_INITRD_PRE_MOUNTROOT_SLEEP='5'
ZFS_INITRD_POST_MODPROBE_SLEEP='5'

# initramfs is updated

update-initramfs -u

Afterwards you can reboot the system with reboot and observe the boot process. Before and after the import of the rpool now up to 5 seconds are waited, so that the system can start now properly.

References

Author: Jonas Sterr Jonas Sterr has been working for Thomas-Krenn for several years. Originally employed as a trainee in technical support and then in hosting (formerly Filoo), Mr. Sterr now mainly deals with the topics of storage (SDS / Huawei / Netapp), virtualization (VMware, Proxmox, HyperV) and network (switches, firewalls) in product management at Thomas-Krenn.AG in Freyung.