Installing Ubuntu 15.10 with bcache support.

2016 Feb 17 -

A few years ago I had an HP Envy 6T ultra book which shipped with Intel Smart Response software that permitted me to use the SSD as a cache for my hard disk. As the HDD operated at 5400 RPM, the SSD cache resulted in a noticeable improvement in performance in Windows. Sadly, at the time there was not any similar functionality in Linux. As you can imagine, I was quite ecstatic when I learned about bcache, dm-cache and flashcache! Shortly after bcache was added to the kernel, I tried it out and wrote up a short blog post about installing bcache on Ubuntu 14.04 but honestly the method was horrible. It involved first installing Ubuntu to a small partition, booting, creating the bcache device, copying the installation to the bcache partition, updating a bunch of things within a chroot environment, fixing UUID entries in grub, and converting the small partition to swap. Ugh, I know. This method is horribly complicated, prone to mistake, and very time consuming. Today I’m writing to say that there is a better method!

Recently I picked up a Gigabyte P34w v5 ultra-book(ish) laptop for which I wanted to use bcache, but due to some kernel bugs on Skylake processors (more on this in a later blog post), I needed to upgrade my kernel and install NVIDIA drivers immediately to keep my system from locking up. The answer was to get Ubuntu to do a bcache installation to rootfs from the get-go.

Overview

Before we get going, not that this is only valid for a new installation of Linux as we delete all file system information. If this isn’t what you want to do, I suggest you check out flashcache or EnhanceIO which will let you migrate a live system.

Here are the major steps:

  1. Boot the Ubuntu installer
  2. Create a partitions for /boot, the backing, and cache devices.
  3. Create the bcache device
  4. Install Ubuntu onto /dev/bcache0
  5. While still in the live CD, chroot into the new installation
  6. Install bcache-tools and re-generate initramfs
  7. Reboot into a fully functional system.

No copying full partitions, no messing with UUIDs, and no grub trickery. Properly acknowledging my sources, there are two critical posts on Stack Overflow that made me think I could get away with this scheme: Alex’s answer on how to setup bcache and Lekensteyn’s answer on how to restore kernels Lastly, be aware that Grub (and Grub2) do not support bcache, so you will need a separate /boot partition.

Partitioning

First, if you have used this system for anything important, back up your data. We’ll be erasing everything shortly.

Now, boot into the Ubuntu installer and remove any unnecessary partitions. You can use fdisk on the command line or the gparted GUI for this. Now, lets assume that your SSD is /dev/sda and your hard disk is /dev/sdb. Create the following partitioning scheme:

/dev/sda1 - 1024 MB, EXT4, used for /boot
/dev/sda2 - any format, for cache
/dev/sdb1 - EFI partition (if your machine needs it)
/dev/sdb2 - swap
/dev/sdb3 - any format, backing partition

Don’t worry about doing a deep format of the caching and backing partitions as we’ll wipe these shortly. If you made any major changes to the partition tables, you might need to reboot before you can proceed. gparted, in particular, will let you know if this is the case.

Loading bcache, creating device

First, connect to the Internet. Make sure the connection is working. Next open up a terminal and wipe the cache and backing partition file systems:

sudo wipefs -a /dev/sda2
sudo wifefs -a /dev/sdb3

Next we will install bcache-tools and create the bcache device.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bcache-tools
sudo make-bcache -B /dev/sdb3 -C /dev/sda2
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/bcache0

Notice the command to make-bcache used the HDD partition, /dev/sdb3, as the backing (-B) device and the SDD partition, /dev/sda2, as the cache (-C) device.

Installing Ubuntu

WITHOUT rebooting, run the Ubuntu installer from the desktop. When you get to the installation type screen which lets you pick how to install the OS (e.g. the page that says “Erase disk and install Ubuntu” or “Something else”) choose to do custom partitioning.

In the partitioning dialog configure the following:

/dev/bcache0 - format EXT4, use as /
/dev/sda1    - format EXT4, use as /boot
/dev/sdb1    - EFI partition (if your machine needs it)
/dev/sdb2    - swap

Proceed with the installation as normal. When it completes DO NOT REBOOT as the initramfs installed by the live CD does not have the bcache kernel module. If you accidentally rebooted, simply go back in to the live image, install the bcache-tools package as described above and continue with the instructions below.

Installing bcache on the new installation

Here is where things get tricky. What we’re going to do is switch to the new operating system without booting and install some software to get bcache-tools installed and a new initramfs generated so the computer will boot.

First we are going to create a valid chroot environment. We start by mounting several directories from the new installation into specific sub-directories in order to create the directory structure Ubuntu Linux expects:

sudo mount /dev/bcache0 /mnt
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys

Because we will need Internet access, we need to copy the DNS configuration from the live CD into the chroot environment:

sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/resolv.conf

Next we put ourselves into the chroot:

sudo chroot /mnt

Now we are effectively within the new installation’s file system. So all we need to do is install bcache-tools

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bcache-tools

After the package is installed, you should notice that the initramfs is re-generated and installed. You can check the timestamps on the files in /boot against date to confirm this is the case.

Now we clean up. Exit the chroot, cleanly dismount the file system, and reboot:

exit
sudo umount /mnt/sys
sudo umount /mnt/proc
sudo umount /mnt/dev
sudo umount /mnt/boot
sudo umount /mnt
sudo reboot

Post-install

Restore the default resolv.conf configuration

sudo ln -sf ../run/resolvconf/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

With any luck, your machine will reboot normally and you will have a fully functional Ubuntu installation with bcache out of the box without all the work of previous methods.

Tags:
Categories: