Btrfs is a copy-on-write (CoW) filesystem available in the standard Linux kernel, which provides advanced features like snapshotting and volume management, similarly to what LVM provides.
I've been using LVM on my laptop for quite some time, to keep separate volumes for filesystem root and /home, and containers. LVM makes this easy and also allows to resize partitions without needing to move data.
Even though way more flexible than physical partitions, LVM volumes too have a preallocated size; this can be a problem with many volumes and not a lot of disk size (such as on laptops with SSDs). The choice is to either create small partitions and grown them as needed (leaving empty space in the volume group), or create larger partitions and possibly waste space.
In this regard Btrfs is much more flexible, since subvolumes use a global space pool: a single partition can host multiple subvolumes that can be created, destroyed, copied and snapshotted without wasting any unused space. On the other hand, Btrfs volumes are not generic space pools, they can't be used to host other filesystem types, so for instance for swap, a separate partition is needed.
I decided to reinstall my laptop with the latest beta of Ubuntu 16.04 (which has now been finalized and released), replacing the root and /home LVM volumes with a single Btrfs partition and different subvolumes.
When reinstalling, I wanted to keep my full-disk encryption (FDE) setup, where swap, root and /home partitions were encrypted, which I had on my previous Wily installation (using the installer encrypted setup choice).
Unfortunately FDE with Btrfs is not available out-of-the-box in the installer, since the "Encrypt the new Ubuntu installation for security" option uses a single Ext4 partition, but with a few manual steps during installation, it's possible to have the same result using Btrfs.
Partitioning the disk¶
The easiest way to do this is to use the disk configurator from the Ubuntu installer:
- boot the install media (DVD or USB stick), start the install and choose the "Try ubuntu without installing" option at boot
- at the "Installation type" page, choose "Something else"
- create 3 partitions of the following types:
- EFI system partition (for /boot/efi). It can be quite small, since only a few MB will be used.
- Ext2 filesystem (for /boot). This also doesn't need to be very big, a few hundred MB are enough.
- physical volume for encryption (for the dm-crypt volume), using the rest of the space. When selecting this option the installer will ask for an encryption password, which will be needed at each boot for unlocking the volume.
Now that we have physical partitions set up, we can quit the installer; we'll restart after setting up volumes inside the last partition.
The next step is to create an LVM volume group in the encrypted partition, with volumes for swap and root filesystem. Since the partition is /dev/sda3 (we'll assume the target disk is /dev/sda), the dm-crypt volume created by the installer will be named /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt.
Creating the LVM is just a few commands:
$ sudo vgcreate ubuntu /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt $ sudo lvcreate --name swap -L 16Gb ubuntu # adjust size as needed $ sudo lvcreate --name root -l 100%FREE ubuntu
Installing Ubuntu¶
At this point, we can launch the installer, selecting once again "Something else" as installation type.
The disk partitioner will show the partitions we just created, we just need to enable them with the proper mountpoint:
- /dev/sda1: "EFI system partition", mounted on /boot/efi
- /dev/sda2: "Ext2 filesystem", mounted on /boot
- /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root: "Btrfs filesystem", mounted on /
- /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap: "swap area"
Make sure that for all partitions (except swap) the "format" checkbox is selected.
IMPORTANT: the physical device (/dev/sda) must be selected as target for bootloader install.
Now we can proceed with the normal Ubuntu install, answering all configuration questions as desired.
At the end of the installation process, DO NOT REBOOT YET (select "continue testing").
Post-install setup¶
A few more manual steps are required after installing the system to make it aware of the full-disk encryption setup. Since the partitioning has been done manually, the installer didn't do it for us. All the following commands need to be run as root:
mount the target root filesystem, and all pseudo-filesystems under it (to be able to enter a chroot later)
# mount /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root /mnt -o subvol=@ # mount -o bind /dev/ /mnt/dev # mount -t sysfs sysfs /mnt/sys # mount -t proc procfs /mnt/proc
get the UUID of the encrypted partition (not the PARTUUID) and create /etc/crypttab in the target root
# blkid /dev/sda3 /dev/sda3: UUID="<YOUR-UUID>" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" PARTUUID="f25a9621-045f-4d79-b0a0-489c5f7c0562" # echo "sda3_crypt UUID=<YOUR-UUID> none luks,discard" > /mnt/etc/crypttab
chroot into the target root directory, to rebuild the kernel initramfs and grub config
# chroot /mnt # mount /boot # mount /boot/efi # service lvm2-lvmetad start # needed for grub to find the LVM volumes # update-initramfs -u # update-grub
Now everything should be set up, so we can undo all mounts, including the target root filesystem.
# service lvm2-lvmetad stop # umount /boot/efi # umount /boot # umount /sys # umount /proc # umount /dev # exit # from the chroot # umount /mnt
Done! Now we can reboot into the new system.
Before actually booting, a splash screen will ask the password to unlock the encrypted volume (the one chosen when creating the partition).
Recap of partition setup¶
The install uses three partitions, of which two get mounted directly:
$ mount | grep /dev/sda /dev/sda2 on /boot type ext2 (rw,relatime,block_validity,barrier,user_xattr,acl) /dev/sda1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
The encrypted /dev/sda3 partition will be visible through the dm-crypt volume:
$ sudo cryptsetup status /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt is active and is in use. type: LUKS1 cipher: aes-xts-plain64 keysize: 512 bits device: /dev/sda3 offset: 4096 sectors size: 311025664 sectors mode: read/write flags: discards
Since the opened /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt volume contains an LVM setup, the kernel automatically makes volumes inside it available:
$ sudo vgs VG #PV #LV #SN Attr VSize VFree ubuntu 1 2 0 wz--n- 148.30g 0 $ sudo lvs LV VG Attr LSize Pool Origin Data% Meta% Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert root ubuntu -wi-ao---- 132.42g swap ubuntu -wi-ao---- 15.88g
Finally, volumes in the Btrfs partition, /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root, are mounted. The installer automatically creates two subvolumes for / and /home.
$ mount | grep /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root on / type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=257,subvol=/@) /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root on /home type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=258,subvol=/@home) $ sudo btrfs subvolume list / ID 257 gen 16908 top level 5 path @ ID 258 gen 16908 top level 5 path @home
Note that since the device is an SSD, Btrfs enables optimizations for it (visible in the ssd mount option).
Additional subvolumes¶
Arbitrary additional subvolumes can be created in the filesystem, even under the root one. For example, tools like LXC, LXD, and Docker take advantage of the Btrfs capabilities to store container filesystems and images in subvolumes, so that they can be copied and snapshotted very quickly, without needing actual data copy.
These are be listed among other subvolumes:
$ sudo btrfs subvolume list / ID 257 gen 16908 top level 5 path @ ID 258 gen 16908 top level 5 path @home ID 343 gen 3691 top level 257 path var/cache/lxc/trusty/rootfs-amd64 ID 348 gen 3811 top level 257 path var/lib/lxc/trusty/rootfs ID 562 gen 12995 top level 257 path var/lib/docker/btrfs/subvolumes/a1723918aa603a5c9d63bff2fc623ccbcc5ad1cbeb8c048929c65237ce61bebc ID 563 gen 12996 top level 257 path var/lib/docker/btrfs/subvolumes/e8eb5e7f51f415678c3126ca447e2df32d74fe041d0782bfb39357ae6cf28cec ID 581 gen 16882 top level 257 path var/lib/lxd/images/6cb0ba80a5fe32357568a473cbaf69f14d26da0ba6b08f5b1bcde7053fc73757.btrfs