zfsify

DigitalOcean validation

Archived test record for the exact installer checksums below. These results do not describe the current boot layout or minimum requirements. See the current validation index for supported workflows and evidence.

Passed on 2026-09-07 UTC (2026-09-06 Pacific). All runtime testing was performed on a live DigitalOcean Droplet. No local runtime or VM tests were used.

Environment

• Stock image: ubuntu-24-04-x64.
• Plan: s-2vcpu-4gb, SFO3, 80 GB included disk, IPv6 enabled.
• Attached Volumes: none (volume_ids: []).
• Firmware: legacy BIOS. Original Ubuntu kernel: 6.8.0-124-generic.
• Stock disk layout included separate /boot and /boot/efi partitions, plus a tiny ISO metadata disk. Only the root disk was rewritten.

Clean one-command acceptance

The test Droplet was rebuilt from the stock image after development fixes. The exact packaged script was copied to an HTTP server bound to loopback on the DigitalOcean Droplet, and started with:

curl -fsSL http://127.0.0.1:8765/install.sh | sh

The HTTP server and staging command ran as temporary systemd services so the test controller could observe them over separate SSH connections. No manual repairs, recovery boot, or extra disk were used during this clean acceptance run. This tested the curl-pipeline installation before publication. The checksum below identifies the tested artifact. The GitHub download URL was not used in this Droplet run.

Tested dist/install.sh SHA-256:

a673e046cef57aa4bbb58b9d5dc234007f6a3d579bb30f5a737264e35ac86181

Start: 00:27:20 UTC. Installed Ubuntu and cloud-init checks completed by 00:31:16 UTC: approximately four minutes, including both installer reboots and DigitalOcean’s first-boot agent provisioning.

Verified:

• / and /boot both resolve to rpool/ROOT/ubuntu, filesystem zfs.
• The root disk contains a 1 MiB BIOS boot partition and one ZFS partition using the remaining space. No ext4/FAT filesystem or separate boot pool remains.
• GRUB reads /boot directly as ZFS. Pool compatibility is grub2.
• Pool ONLINE, with zero read, write, or checksum errors.
• Original SSH host keys and root authorized key continued working.
• DNS, provider metadata access, and IPv6 HTTPS access worked.
• Cloud-init reported done, errors: [], and no recoverable errors.
• DigitalOcean’s Droplet Agent installed successfully.
• No failed systemd units.
• A root snapshot and mounted clone contained the kernel, initramfs, and matching modules, and excluded a file written after the snapshot. Test objects removed.
• Running the installer again exited before creating staging state or changing the pool GUID.

Kernel maintenance and reboot

Reinstalled linux-image-virtual, linux-image-6.8.0-139-generic, and linux-modules-6.8.0-139-generic through APT. Package hooks regenerated the initramfs and GRUB configuration successfully on ZFS. Then rebooted and verified that the boot ID changed and all root, service, cloud-init, package-audit, and snapshot checks passed again at 00:32:56 UTC.

Running kernel: 6.8.0-139-generic. ZFS: 2.2.2-0ubuntu9.4. This was a package reinstallation/reboot test, not an upgrade to a later ABI or an Ubuntu release upgrade.

Evidence: installation log, kernel package log, and post-reboot checks.

Evidence files are sanitized for public distribution: test Droplet IDs and UUIDs are redacted; terminal carriage returns are normalized.

Development findings

• linux-image-generic pulled in unnecessary physical-device firmware and made the initial RAM archive too large. linux-image-virtual includes the required kernel/ZFS modules without that firmware. Staging now builds and checks the complete archive before copying it to /boot.
• A bare devtmpfs lacks /dev/fd; the installer now creates the standard proc descriptor links before using Bash logging redirection.
• Installer output and the rescue shell explicitly use the VGA console so they are visible in DigitalOcean’s Recovery Console.
• The minimal image needs lsb-release for cloud-init’s apt configuration and wget for DigitalOcean’s vendor agent installation. Both are included.
• Before erasure, the GRUB one-shot fallback was tested by power-cycling a failed RAM boot and returning successfully to the original ext4 Ubuntu system.

Limits

Tested only on this amd64/BIOS DigitalOcean configuration with 4 GiB RAM. UEFI, ARM, other providers, smaller-memory plans, application/data migration, disk growth, reusable generalized snapshots, and release upgrades are not validated. The build uses current signed Ubuntu repositories, so later builds can resolve newer packages than the versions recorded here.

Cleanup

The temporary Droplet and the test SSH key were deleted after acceptance. Both resource lookups returned HTTP 404. The temporary local SSH private key was removed; the API token was never written into this project or its logs.

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