Partition naming, fstab, and geli

[Jerry McAllister]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 07:23:15PM -0700, David Allen wrote:

> Say I have performed a standard installation of FreeBSD onto a single IDE
> drive with the following entries in /etc/fstab:
> 
>     /dev/ad0s1b  none  swap  sw  0  0
>     /dev/ad0s1a  /     ufs   rw  1  1
>     /dev/ad0s1d  /var  ufs   rw  2  2
>     /dev/ad0s1e  /tmp  ufs   rw  2  2
>     /dev/ad0s1f  /usr  ufs   rw  2  2
> 
> Then I added more drives.
> 
> 1. The Handbook suggests there is a convention that when partitioning a a
> drive that's been added, to label the first new partition on that drive as
> 'e' as opposed to 'a' (which is reserved for the /root partition).  Does
> the following satisfy that convention, or would starting with 'a' in each
> case make more sense?

It really doesn't matter.   Just don't use 'c' and I usually skip
using 'b' and even often use it for a little additional swap.
But, just pick a habit that works for you and stick with it.

> 
>     /dev/ad1e  /foo1  ufs  rw  2  2
>     /dev/ad1f  /bar1  ufs  rw  2  2
>     /dev/ad1g  /baz1  ufs  rw  2  2
> 
>     /dev/ad2e  /foo2  ufs  rw  2  2
>     /dev/ad2f  /bar2  ufs  rw  2  2
> 
>     /dev/ad3e  /foo3  ufs  rw  2  2
>     /dev/ad3f  /bar3  ufs  rw  2  2
> 
> 2.  My second question is in regards to using the 'xx' fstype to have the
> system ignore that device.

Leave the fstype alone.
Use the noauto option.
Probably set dump and pass to 0 also.

So, for example, if you do not want it to try and mount /dev/ad3f at
boot time, the line would look like:

        /dev/ad3f  /bar3  ufs  rw,noauto  0  0

> 
> Consider, for example, a geli encrypted partition.  The .eli device
> doesn't exist at boot time.  I discovered by accident that the system
> won't boot with an fstab entry for a device that doesn't exist.  So if I
> was to record an entry in fstab, I couldn't use
> 
>     /dev/ad1e.eli  /home/david/private  ufs  rw  0  0
> 
> Does that mean that the following is what's typically to record fstab
> entries for ignored devices?
> 
>     /dev/ad1e.eli  /home/david/private  xx   rw  0  0
>     /dev/ad3e      /fake                xx   rw  0  0
>     /dev/ad3f      /reserved            xx   rw  0  0
> 
> Thanks.
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