Booting from gpt on i386/amd64? [SOLVED]

[Alexey Shuvaev]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 11:16:07PM +0200, Paul B. Mahol wrote:
> On 8/29/08, Alexey Shuvaev <shuvaev at physik.uni-wuerzburg.de> wrote:
> > Hello list!
> >
> > I have tried to install a system with pure gpt partitioning,
> > but haven't managed to boot from it.
> >
> > Partition table:
> >
> > =>       34  976773101  ad6  GPT  (500.1GB)
> >          34    1571840    1  freebsd-ufs  (804.8MB)
> >     1571874    8388608    2  freebsd-swap  (4.3GB)
> >     9960482       1024    3  freebsd-boot  (524.3KB)
> >     9961506    8388608    4  freebsd-ufs  (4.3GB)
> >    18350114     524288    5  freebsd-ufs  (268.4MB)
> >    18874402  134217728    6  freebsd-ufs  (68.7GB)
> >   153092130  823681005       - free -  (421.7GB)
> >
> > All necessary files are already installed (ad6p1 = /, ad6p4 = /var, and
> > so on). The system is 8.0-CURRENT from 8 August (bootable usb flash).
> > Computer is Core2Duo E8400 3.0 GHz, 4 Gb RAM, ICH9, 500 GB SATA.
> > What have been done:
> >
> > gpart bootcode -b /path/to/pmbr ad6
> > [Successful]
> >
> > gpart bootcode -p /path/to/gptboot -i 3 ad6
> > gpart: /dev/ad6p3: Invalid argument
> >
> > I have tried to 'newfs /dev/ad6p3' and then mounting it and copying
> > gptboot into 'boot' directory on ad6p3, but looking at the sources it
> > seems to be wrong.
> >
> > Then I tried to 'dd if=gptboot of=/dev/ad6p3 bs=512',
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This command writes gptboot only partially!!!
I have padded gptboot to nearest sector boundary and dd-ed it to ad6p3.
After that the system booted successfully.
As I have expected GENERIC kernel is enough.

> > but in all cases during the boot the blinking cursor moves 1 line down
> > and computer freezes here.
> >
The remaining question is what is the correct way to put gptboot to
'freebsd-boot' partition?
It seems that this functionality was in gpt(8) but is missing in
gpart(8). Any work in progress? While I am here should I look at it?

Alexey.