From nobody Tue Sep 02 22:02:38 2025 X-Original-To: freebsd-current@mlmmj.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mlmmj.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4cGfqr3y1kz65mlP for ; Tue, 02 Sep 2025 22:02:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jgopensource@proton.me) Received: from mail-4316.protonmail.ch (mail-4316.protonmail.ch [185.70.43.16]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) key-exchange X25519 server-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) server-digest SHA256 client-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) client-digest SHA256) (Client CN "protonmail.com", Issuer "R10" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4cGfqp4lYgz3DqL for ; Tue, 02 Sep 2025 22:02:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jgopensource@proton.me) Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=pass header.d=proton.me header.s=protonmail header.b=Hxw0sDOc; dmarc=pass (policy=quarantine) header.from=proton.me; spf=pass (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of jgopensource@proton.me designates 185.70.43.16 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=jgopensource@proton.me DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=proton.me; s=protonmail; t=1756850562; x=1757109762; bh=pdbZCQbLs1AqxZgx2VNFpxyvM0+J778NEiIsIfbHE+I=; h=Date:To:From:Subject:Message-ID:In-Reply-To:References: Feedback-ID:From:To:Cc:Date:Subject:Reply-To:Feedback-ID: Message-ID:BIMI-Selector; b=Hxw0sDOcSxkbve1+iWGiV+ZLeqkaIXhpwtB7KK0gFJ6+g0sbsqp+hWBQuqeNjnB0u Z0B0Ouxy3+fxVZ8Uz1Zgb2x4ZmHfwQe/TPJb91DqzoTmdj0jtQVeMOxO4eZTjW8byC 5NgkfjoZ/Z5RMHIDEcgTTPcVWN1zXRrqI1WWlTf00mLh7UOmWpUYOqH8vFMQXwuJ15 fFi/qvKqOYCi7RnzEvOCqRfOiT4O4Y4x4VGtqXdTBDTSGGsNoY498YORiyKeLDyZcm L2UvjGJFD2kTXkLH0A9mXrIDKQ/wJrwsXSco3WX6N1GanHH8+LmdcPnoT8sbB4rT+y nFcZ6BrP6WqIg== Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2025 22:02:38 +0000 To: FreeBSD-CURRENT From: Jordan Gordeev Subject: Re: Using a recovery partition to repair a broken installation of FreeBSD Message-ID: In-Reply-To: References: <7b384ac0-9b24-43a4-bf63-012d745155a7@gmail.com> <18e1a7e9-07d8-43a2-96af-0acdab6c2920@gmail.com> <98890564-ad8f-411a-9c00-45326a9d6ff5@gmail.com> Feedback-ID: 125078299:user:proton X-Pm-Message-ID: f1ddf0e8108e6744e70bd79153a6fe13bb872562 List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Archive: https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-current List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Spamd-Bar: ---- X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-4.20 / 15.00]; NEURAL_HAM_LONG(-1.00)[-1.000]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-1.00)[-1.000]; NEURAL_HAM_SHORT(-1.00)[-1.000]; DMARC_POLICY_ALLOW(-0.50)[proton.me,quarantine]; R_SPF_ALLOW(-0.20)[+ip4:185.70.43.0/24]; R_DKIM_ALLOW(-0.20)[proton.me:s=protonmail]; RWL_MAILSPIKE_VERYGOOD(-0.20)[185.70.43.16:from]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; ASN(0.00)[asn:62371, ipnet:185.70.43.0/24, country:CH]; MISSING_XM_UA(0.00)[]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; TO_DN_ALL(0.00)[]; RCPT_COUNT_ONE(0.00)[1]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_ALL(0.00)[]; MLMMJ_DEST(0.00)[freebsd-current@freebsd.org]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; MID_RHS_MATCH_FROM(0.00)[]; RCVD_COUNT_ZERO(0.00)[0]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE(0.00)[185.70.43.16:from]; DKIM_TRACE(0.00)[proton.me:+] X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 4cGfqp4lYgz3DqL On Tuesday, 2 September 2025 at 22:27, Warner Losh wrote: >=20 >=20 > On Tue, Sep 2, 2025 at 12:53=E2=80=AFPM Graham Perrin wrote: >=20 > > On 01/09/2025 02:58, Graham Perrin wrote: > > > An enhancement to bsdinstall could, before creation of the partition > > > table, allow the user to specify an amount of space to be left free a= t > > > the end of a device =E2=80=A6 > >=20 > >=20 > > For now, short term, is the (simple) free space idea attractive? > >=20 > > Longer term: I'm not averse to more complex enhancements around e.g. > > /rescue/, however I _do_ like the idea of free space. > >=20 > > Freedom for the user to do whatever they want. They might, or might not= , > > want to use the space for the content of > > FreeBSD-15.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img =E2=80=A6 and so on. Maybe this= overlaps > > with ZFS-specific bsdinstall report > > . >=20 >=20 > Things are small enough, I'd rather just create it in the ESP directly. S= pecial reserved space on disks are nothing but a pain. >=20 I think the user should have a choice between a small rescue image residing= as a file in the EFI System Partition and a big rescue image with more fea= tures residing in its own dedicated partition. On some machines the ESP wil= l be too small for the first option so the option for a separate partition = should definitely be supported. I want to suggest an enhancement to the default loader.efi (the one with th= e Lua interpreter) which will work for all styles of rescue images. Let's a= dd a "rescue" command to the loader which will read and execute the script = /efi/freebsd/rescue.lua from the ESP. The user can place a small rescue ima= ge in the ESP and write there a suitable rescue.lua script that can activat= e it, or they can create a whole rescue partition and write a different res= cue.lua script to the ESP that knows how to activate the rescue partition. = It will be a small change to the loader but at the same time it will be qui= te flexible. From the user's perspective, if the boot fails and you are left at the load= er's prompt, you just type "rescue". Users will probably pick from ready-ma= de rescue images, each one coming with the necessary rescue.lua script, so = there will be nothing difficult for the user to do. Best regards, Jordan Gordeev