FreeBSD

TrueNAS reboot loop, VM load, and the NVMe that would not stay seated

Overview

This is the build-and-break log for bringing a previously unstable TrueNAS/FreeBSD box back to a usable state after months of ugly crash behavior under VM load.

The short version:

  • Salvaged hardware repurposed as a NAS
  • A Fedora VM running Plex-related work could trigger a reboot loop
  • Early on, the machine was already rebooting itself in a loop — even before the NVMe path failure showed up clearly in logs
  • Hard evidence eventually pointed at one NVMe path (nvme2 / nda2) timing out and detaching under load
  • Reseating the suspect SN770 and replacing its heatsink brought the mirror back online
  • Current best hypothesis: physical seating, thermal contact, or mechanical instability — not a software bug
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Making ZFS ARC Grafana Panels FreeBSD-Compatible

Making ZFS ARC Grafana Panels FreeBSD-Compatible

Steps taken to make an imported ZFS/Grafana dashboard work correctly on FreeBSD. Panels assumed Linux exporters and referenced metrics that do not exist on FreeBSD. The result was a dashboard full of empty panels. This walkthrough shows how the missing ARC kstats where identified, cleanly exported and refactored so that the panels reflect the real FreeBSD kernel state.

Host: clemente (10.10.0.1)
Stack: FreeBSD + node_exporter (textfile collector) + Prometheus + Grafana
Date: 2026-02-10


Overview (Context & Goal)

grafana ZFS FreeBSD.

FreeBSD ZFS Grafana Panel.

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Monitoring ZFS with Grafana

Date: 2026-02-08
Host: grafana
Component: Prometheus + Grafana + exporters +zfs
Scope: ZFS monitoring

ZFS / Zpool Metrics for Prometheus (node-exporter + textfile collector on FreeBSD)

This guide sets up zpool capacity metrics (zpool list) for Prometheus/Grafana using node-exporter’s textfile collector on FreeBSD.

This complements (not replaces) zfs_exporter, which provides ARC/internal ZFS metrics but not pool capacity.


What I Got Working

Metrics exposed to Prometheus:

  • zpool_size_bytes{pool="zroot"}
  • zpool_alloc_bytes{pool="zroot"}
  • zpool_free_bytes{pool="zroot"}
  • zpool_capacity_ratio{pool="zroot"}

These map directly to:

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Ungoogled-Chromium on a Jail

Date: 2026-02-08
Host: GhostBSD
Component: Ungoogled-Chrome


Chromey Installer

Note 2025-11-02 23:04:26

This document packages everything needed to install, back up, restore, and run Ungoogled Chromium inside a Bastille jail named chromey

in the JailFox style and more. After going through the process you have a jailed ungoogle-chromium with full video and audio support, emojis and fonts etc.

Just in case the chicken came before the egg, the process starts with a robust Home backup/restore flow so your profile/configs survive rebuilds. Then it walks through the templates, scripts, mounts, X11 fixes, and the launchers.

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