Dangerously Dedicated (was: How do I create large ...)

[James Phillips]

> Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 22:00:29 +0100
> From: Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de>
> Subject: Re: How do I create large partitions in FreeBSD?
> To: krad <kraduk at googlemail.com>
> Cc: Peter Steele <psteele at maxiscale.com>,
>     "freebsd-questions at freebsd.org"
> <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
> Message-ID: <20091208220029.2052102f.freebsd at edvax.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> On Tue, 8 Dec 2009 20:52:52 +0000, krad <kraduk at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
> > stay away from dangerously dedicated it seems as
> though they are being
> > phased out
> 
> I've followed the related discussion, but I'm not sure
> what
> to conclude from it... as far as I understood, creating an
> installation "dangerously dedicated" mode isn't possible
> from sysinstall anymore, but still possible via the
> command
> line tools. I don't see a reason why it is considered to
> be
> something bad, but the inclusion of a "carrier slice" for
> the OS's partitions has always been recommended. But for
> data disks where only one partition is intended, why
> create
> it inside a slice?
> 

I sort of followed the discussion as well. There was some 
disagreement about what "dangreously dedicated" means. Does it mean 
getting rid of the DOS partition table (slices?)  Or, does it mean 
creating a slice or disks without BSD partitions? The Handbook (18.3) 
says: "If the disk is  going to be truly dedicated to FreeBSD, you 
can use the dedicated mode. Otherwise, FreeBSD will have to live 
within one of the PC BIOS partitions. FreeBSD calls the PC BIOS 
partitions slices so as not to confuse them with traditional BSD 
partitions." 
The programer in charge of the change seemed to indicate that the 
"Dangerously dedicated" mode (I assume that means no BSD partititons) 
conflicts with "GEOM: Modular Disk Transformation Framework." GEOM 
appears to be an asbtraction layer for accessing various disks. With 
the move underway to start accessing all disk as SCSI(3 is device 
independent (with translation help)) devices, it probably makes for 
more elegant code. Handbook (19.2 GEOM Introduction) reads:
"GEOM permits access and control to classes -- Master Boot Records, 
BSD labels, etc -- through the use of providers, or the special files 
in /dev. Supporting various software RAID configurations, GEOM will 
transparently provide access to the operating system and operating 
system utilities." 
The important thing in that quote is that "BSD labels" (and Master 
Boot Records) are mentioned specificly. 
Regards,

James Phillips


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