Scripting sysinstall(8) to create & use multiple slices on a disk?

[Stefan Miklosovic]

Hi,

could you please send me those installers you have written?

I would like to write up mine and I dont have an idea how to do that.

Your scripts would really helped me a lot.

Be so kind and please send me to like attachment or to
miklosovic.freebsd at gmail.com

god bless you :)

jpaetzel wrote:
> 
> On Friday 05 March 2010 07:01:00 John Baldwin wrote:
>> On Thursday 04 March 2010 4:33:29 pm David Wolfskill wrote:
>> > For reasons that may well be idiosyncratic, I like to set up FreeBSD
>> > machines to have at least 2 bootable slices -- e.g., one can act as a
>> > fallback if an attempted software upgrade proves to have been
>> ill-timed.
>> > 
>> > In the past, I've done this manually; while a bit tedious & fairly
>> > "target-rich" with opportunities for human error, it's something that
>> is
>> > typically done infrequently (i.e., once) in the life of a machine (or
>> at
>> > least its boot drive).
>> > 
>> > At work, the IT folks use a scripted sysinstall(8) to set machines up;
>> > to increase the probability that I'll be able to get 3 "special"
>> > machines set up the way I want, I'm trying to set up a sysinstall
>> config
>> > file to make this as painless as possible.
>> > 
>> > I managed to get a copy of the config script IT uses, so I had a
>> > starting-point ... but they were setting the machines up with
>> > 
>> > partition=exclusive
>> > 
>> > which doesn't seem like a good choice for what I'm doing.  :-}
>> > 
>> > 
>> > After my first attempt failed, I poked around on the Net & found
>> >
>> <http://www.nntpnews.net/f2458/what-proper-install-cfg-configuring-multip
>> > le-
>> 
>> slices-4387807/>,
>> 
>> > (dated 18-11-08, 10:40 PM ), in which Peter Steele describes something
>> > 
>> > similar to what I was about to try next, and writes:
>> > | My intent here is to create three slices-one 6GB in size, another 1GB
>> > | in size, and the third sized to consume the remaining free space.
>> When
>> > | I run this through sysinstall, it complains that it can't find the
>> > | space for the partitions. It even complains that it can't find any
>> > | free space. Because the slices don't get created, the subsequent
>> label
>> > | assignments fail as well. What is the proper commands for creating
>> > | multiple slices in install.cfg?
>> > 
>> > In a foillowup, he writes:
>> > | After a lot of experimenting, my impression is that sysinstall simply
>> > | doesn't support multiple slice installations. It works to a point,
>> but
>> > | I get some unexpected errors, e.g.
>> > | 
>> > | Unable to make device node for /dev/ad0s1a in /dev
>> > 
>> > which doesn't seem very encouraging.
>> > 
>> > 
>> > Would someone please either confirm the limitation or provide a
>> > suitable excerpt from a sysinstall config script to demonstrate
>> > that it is actually possible?  (Or show me where it's spelled out in
>> the
>> > man page....)
>> > 
>> > (I'm using 7.x sysinstall, if that matters.)
>> 
>> If you are doing a fully scripted install you may be better off just
>> using
>> a dedicated shell script to format your disks and mount them and then use
>> the various *-install.sh scripts from the release distributions to
>> install
>> the code.  You could still do this via sysinstall by sticking your shell
>> script in /stand in the MFS root and having your sysinstall script just
>> run that script. You might want to build a custom mfsroot to add some
>> more
>> useful tools though.
>> 
>> I really think sysinstall needs to support a disk "backdoor" whereby the
>> user can either manually partition disks and then mount them at /mnt (or
>> have a script do it), and tell sysinstall to just skip the disk stuff and
>> assume /mnt is mounted.
> 
> David,
> 
> I second the ditching sysinstall for a shell script idea.  A shell script
> that 
> replaces sysinstall is nearly as short as the install.cfg and a lot easier
> to 
> figure out.  I've written a half dozen auto installers for FreeBSD, from 
> trivial to complex and would be more than willing to help you get
> something 
> set up.  I can send you code if you want as well.
> 
> -- 
> Thanks,
> 
> Josh Paetzel
> FreeBSD -- The power to serve
> 
>  
> 

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