GEOM label clarification

[Manolis Kiagias]

PJ wrote:
> Manolis Kiagias wrote:
>   
>> PJ wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> If I understand correctly from the manual, giving the labels their slice
>>> name (/dev/label/rootfs rather than /dev/ad4s1a) will assure that
>>> regardless of the disk, the boot will be from the disk being booted and
>>> not from another disk as happened to me recently - the fstab on disk ad4
>>> was referncing ad12 so the boot was from ad12 rather than ad4.
>>> The handbook says:
>>> "By permanently labeling the partitions on the boot disk, the system
>>> should be able to continue to boot normally, even if the disk is moved
>>> to another controller or transferred to a different system. For this
>>> example, it is assumed that a single ATA disk is used, which is
>>> currently recognized by the system as ad0."
>>> If the disk is moved to another system, it may no longer be ad0... So
>>> will it still boot correctly?
>>>
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> In short, yes. I do this routinely all the time.
>> Assuming of course that the device is connected to a controller that
>> FreeBSD recognizes.
>> This should be a non-issue for standard ATA/SATA disks.
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> Or should the ufsid labels be used?
>>>
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> The ufsid is also an option if you do not wish to create the labels
>> yourself.
>> The advantage of user-created labels is that they are not 'cryptic' like
>> the ufsid ones
>> and you may actually remember them :)
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> Will both of these contortions work?
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> Yes, both will do.
>>
>>   
>>     
> Thanks for the reassurance. Now to start labelling. Uh.. I guess that
> means that if I label 1 disk and then clone it to several others, they
> wil  all work from any system... Well, I guess I'll try it. Thanks again.
>
>
>   
How are going to clone it? Will the clone also  copy the labels?
For example, if doing a dump / restore (which I often do) I recreate the
partitions manually, newfs them, label them and then restore the
contents. In many cases I use a live (Fixit) system for this.