GEOM label clarification

[PJ]

Manolis Kiagias wrote:
> PJ wrote:
>   
>> If I understand correctly from the manual, giving the labels their slice
>> name (/dev/label/rootfs rather than /dev/ad4s1a) will assure that
>> regardless of the disk, the boot will be from the disk being booted and
>> not from another disk as happened to me recently - the fstab on disk ad4
>> was referncing ad12 so the boot was from ad12 rather than ad4.
>> The handbook says:
>> "By permanently labeling the partitions on the boot disk, the system
>> should be able to continue to boot normally, even if the disk is moved
>> to another controller or transferred to a different system. For this
>> example, it is assumed that a single ATA disk is used, which is
>> currently recognized by the system as ad0."
>> If the disk is moved to another system, it may no longer be ad0... So
>> will it still boot correctly?
>>
>>   
>>     
>
> In short, yes. I do this routinely all the time.
> Assuming of course that the device is connected to a controller that
> FreeBSD recognizes.
> This should be a non-issue for standard ATA/SATA disks.
>
>   
>> Or should the ufsid labels be used?
>>
>>   
>>     
>
> The ufsid is also an option if you do not wish to create the labels
> yourself.
> The advantage of user-created labels is that they are not 'cryptic' like
> the ufsid ones
> and you may actually remember them :)
>
>   
>> Will both of these contortions work?
>>   
>>     
>
> Yes, both will do.
>
>   
Thanks for the reassurance. Now to start labelling. Uh.. I guess that
means that if I label 1 disk and then clone it to several others, they
wil  all work from any system... Well, I guess I'll try it. Thanks again.