FreeBSD installation with single / partition

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2005-03-22 13:54, Andrew Lewis <al at xms.co.za> wrote:
> Is this a serious no-no?
>
> I see this breaks make installworld... :\ Complains about / being
> read-only, and naturally there is no way for me to remount it r/w with
> the system being up... :( And a rescue CD kinda defeats the object of
> rebuilding from source... :(

You are definitely doing something wrong.  The root filesystem should be
mounted as read-write *before* you run installworld.  The UPDATING file
in /usr/src contains the following:

        To rebuild everything and install it on the current system.
        -----------------------------------------------------------
        # Note: sometimes if you are running current you gotta do more than
        # is listed here if you are upgrading from a really old current.

        <make sure you have good level 0 dumps>
        <maybe fix /etc/fstab>                          [7]
        make buildworld
        make kernel KERNCONF=YOUR_KERNEL_HERE
                                                        [1]
        <reboot in single user>                         [3]
        src/etc/rc.d/preseedrandom                      [10]
        mergemaster -p                                  [5]
        make installworld
        mergemaster                                     [4]
        <reboot>

A few paragraphs below...

        [3] From the bootblocks, boot -s, and then do
                fsck -p
                mount -u /
                mount -a
                cd src
                adjkerntz -i            # if CMOS is wall time
        Also, when doing a major release upgrade, it is required that
        you boot into single user mode to do the installworld.

Note the ``mount -u'' and ``mount -a'' commands.

> So, would I do best to reinstall this machine with a proper FS layout
> before putting it into production?

A single, big root partition is definitely a "proper" FS layout, if
that's what you like doing.