Establishing Backup/Restore System

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Barry Skidmore wrote:

> I am trying to build a restore floppy using the script in the FreeBSD
> Handbook:
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/backup-basics.html
>
> I am having two problems so far.
>
> 1.  I am getting syntax errors with some of the commands in the script:
>
> "disklabel: dev/fd0c: no such file or directory"
>                  ^
>                  what is this 'c' doing here?

You're pointing at a "d", but "c" means "the whole drive".  See the
Disks chapter in the Handbook.

It looks like the error is from not specifying an absolute path, which
should be /dev/fd0c (note the leading slash).

> "newfs: illegal option --t"

Just one dash on "-t".

> "mount: /dev/fd0a: no such file or directory"
>               ^
>               what is this 'a' doing here?

"a" means the root partition.  Again, see the Disks chapter.

> 2.  I do not have a MINI kernel on my system, which is needed on the
> backup floppy.  The script gives a sample configuration file to build
> this MINI kernel.  I have looked at the Handbook on building a custom
> kernel, but it is a bit confusing for someone new to unix, and I am not
> sure how the instructions need to be modified for this special case.

I tried this myself a couple of days ago, and there are a couple of
problems.  The kernel config file given uses obsolete terms, and things
have changed since whenever that was written.  The second problem I had
is that commenting out everything possible from a GENERIC kernel still
resulted in a kernel file that was well over 1M in size, and there was
only about 270K of space left on the floppy.  (Other than the erroneous
MINI config given, the floppy creation script does work.)

> One last point.  I realize for my setup that I will also need to put ssh
> on this floppy.  Has anyone done this, and does the program fit?

I haven't yet, but haven't had time to do much more.  A place to start
looking is 'man picobsd'.  You may find more of what you need with
either the ISO of the second CD of the FreeBSD set, or at the
http://www.freesbie.org web site.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA