[Bug 211143] Add "failok" to the /etc/fstab file entry for the DOS filesystem on uboot-using ARM devices.

bugzilla-noreply at freebsd.org bugzilla-noreply at freebsd.org
Fri Jul 15 14:34:15 UTC 2016


https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=211143

            Bug ID: 211143
           Summary: Add "failok" to the /etc/fstab file entry for the DOS
                    filesystem on uboot-using ARM devices.
           Product: Base System
           Version: 11.0-BETA1
          Hardware: Any
                OS: Any
            Status: New
          Severity: Affects Many People
          Priority: ---
         Component: arm
          Assignee: freebsd-arm at FreeBSD.org
          Reporter: karl at denninger.net

On ARM systems where uboot is used, the MSDOS filesystem is required only for
the actual boot.  Once the kernel is loaded the filesystem can be mounted, but
doesn't *have* to be mounted.

The default /etc/fstab entry, however, does two things that are troublesome. 
First, it uses /dev/ufs and /dev/msdosfs prefixes for the filesystem lookups,
which means that those filesystems must be labeled.  However, gpart cannot
display those labels since they are in the msdos and BSD-labeled components of
same, respectively, and due to the Raspberry PIs (and other similar ARM
systems) boot code demands an MBR formatted boot device structure.

That is defensible, however, given the idea that we might not know where the SD
card would attach on a given board (e.g. on which device name.)  What is far
less-defensible, however, is not specifying "failok" for the MSDOS partition
since having it mounted post-boot is not necessary.

If the label is missing on the dos partition the system will boot, the kernel
will load, but then it hangs *silently* from the perspective of a video console
without any error message being displayed.  This problem comes about as a
consequence of single-user mode not coming up on the video console (which also
is broken, IMHO) *and* the lack of the error on the mount resulting in a
console display.

In short arguably the system *should* be able to come up in single user mode on
both the video and serial console on these machines, yet that may be too much
of an ask.

The easy fix for the instant problem, however, is to add "failok" to the msdos
filesystem line in the default /etc/fstab file since the DOS filesystem does
not have to be mounted for the system to come up once uboot had loaded.

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