HDD partitioning question...

[Jerry McAllister]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 01:27:24PM -0700, Dharma Wolford wrote:

> Hi folks,
> 
> (I'm a relative newcomer to all this... thanks for your patience & help.)
> 
> I've installed FreeBSD 6.2 on a system that will be primarily used as an FTP
> server.  It has 2 drives - one for the OS and the other for the FTP
> storage.  My question is about the storage drive in this case.
> 
> You can see how I have things partitioned right now:
> #################################
> [root at mybox /var/log]# mount
> /dev/da0s1a on / (ufs, local)
> devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
> /dev/da0s1d on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates)
> /dev/da0s1f on /usr (ufs, local, soft-updates)
> /dev/da0s1e on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates)
> /dev/da1 on /usr/home (ufs, local, soft-updates)
> [root at mybox /var/log]#
> #################################
> 
> I started by trying to use fdisk to partition the storage drive (/dev/da1)
> but was getting errors which I don't exactly recall - something about a
> problem with the 'block device'.
> Anyway, then I wound up using the command "newfs -O 2 /dev/da1"  which
> seemed to work and I was then able to mount and use the drive.

Let's get a technicality out of the way first.
The primary division of the disk - that is usually created using fdisk
is called a 'slice' in FreeBSD, not partition.   If you subdivide
a slice, then those subdivisions are called partitions.

So, maybe you either misused fdisk or misunderstood the error message.
You didn't repete either the full command you entered or the exact
error message you got, so it is hard to be sure what happened with fdisk.
> 
> My question is:  is there anything wrong with having "/dev/da1"  mounted an
> in-use?  Should I have created a partition like "/dev/da1s1a" or something?
> I seem to remember somebody once chiding me for having formatted or mounted
> the 'block device' itself instead of a partition... is this making any sense
> to anyone?  Clearly I need to know more about *NIX file systems (slices,
> partitions, block devices) and best practices or some such - I am working on
> it but obviously have a ways to go!

It looks like you have made what is referred to in the handbook
as a 'dangerously dedicated' disk.   It is dangerous only because
it is not compatible with anything else but what you are doing right
now.   If you want to access it with any other system, then it would
not work.   But, as long as you only write/read it with the FreeBSD
system like you are, it should be no problem.

If, before you get any further, you want to clean it up a little,
post the full fdisk command you were using and the error message
you got.

////jerry

> 
> Thanks very much!
> 
> dharma
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