freebsd-hackers Digest, Vol 624, Issue 6

[Pokala, Ravi]

>Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 02:28:46 +0000
>From: "Pokala, Ravi" <rpokala at panasas.com>
>To: "freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org" <freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org>,
>	"freebsd-hackers at freebsd.org" <freebsd-hackers at freebsd.org>
>Subject: Booting off NVMe using traditional bootstrap?
>Message-ID: <D1449A6E.1322B6%rpokala at panasas.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>Hi folks,
>
>Does anyone know off-hand if it's possible to boot (amd64) off of an NVMe
>device using the traditional bootstrap code (i.e. *not* UEFI)?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Ravi

Naturally, someone pointed out the obvious idea - put /boot on a USB stick
and boot off that.

As silly as it sounds, we've had trouble doing that in the past - USB
hiccups caused '/' to disappear, and hilarity ensued. Nothing like an
expensive server going offline because a $10 component failed. :-P Though
I suppose in the past we were putting all of '/' on the USB, not just
'/boot'...

So, how little can we get away with putting on the USB? For it to have
'/boot', doesn't that mean it also has have '/'? Or else, how would it
recognize that the 'boot' directory on the USB was actually '/boot'?

Doing this (minimal bootstrap on one device, everything else on other
devices) seems like it should be documented, but a quick trip to Google
and to freebsd.org don't reveal anything obvious. Any pointers?

Thanks,

Ravi