I hate to bitch but bitch I must

[PJ]

michael wrote:
> PJ wrote:
>> Why is it that the manual pages, as thorough as they may be, are very,
>> very confusing.
>> Perhaps I am being too wary, but I find that too many
>> instructions/examples are stumbling blocks to appreciation of the whole
>> system:
>> for instance, let's look at the instructions for changing disk labels
>> with glabel or is it tunefs ?
>> man glabel(8):
>>
>> for UFS the file system label is set with
>> tunefs(8)
>> <http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tunefs&sektion=8&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7.2-RELEASE>.
>>
>> what happened to glabel?
>> man tunefs(8)
>> The *tunefs* utility cannot be
>> run on an active file system. To change an active file system, it must
>> be downgraded to read-only or unmounted.
>>
>> So, you have to run tunefs from an active file system to modify another
>> disk?
>> but from man tunefs:
>> BUGS
>> This utility should work on active file systems.
>> What in hades does this mean--just above it says cannot be run on active
>> file systems. ???
>>  To change the root file
>> system, the system must be rebooted after the file system is tuned.
>>
>> You can tune a file system, but you cannot tune a fish.
>> How cute... And fish eat bugs.
>>
>> Seriously, now to the manual:
>> To create a permanent label for a UFS2 file system without destroying
>> any data, issue the following command:
>> # tunefs -L /home/ /dev/da3
>>
>> Oh? home is what? What does this have to do with the partitions?
>> Here's from man glabel(8):
>>
>> EXAMPLES
>> The following example shows how to set up a label for disk ``da2'', cre-
>> ate a file system on it, and mount it:
>> glabel label -v usr /dev/da2
>> newfs /dev/label/usr
>> mount /dev/label/usr /usr
>> [...]
>> umount /usr
>> glabel stop usr
>> glabel unload
>>
>> The next example shows how to set up a label for a UFS file system:
>> tunefs -L data /dev/da4s1a
>> mount /dev/ufs/data /mnt/data
>>
>> Am I to understand that glabel is only for a new system? What's with the
>> newfs... I'm trying to set labels on an system that is already set up.
>> And, the glabel examle above is not for UFS file systems? Oh, that's for
>> tunefs?
>> So why are we even dealing with this glabel?
>>
>> from manual:
>> # tunefs -L /home/ //dev/da3/
>> A label should now exist in /dev/ufs which may be added to /etc/fstab:
>> /dev/ufs/home /home ufs rw 2 2
>>
>> Why? Is this necessary? and somewhere I saw "tunefs -L volume
>> /dev/da0s1a" or something like that. Does that mean that each partition
>> should be tunefsd? Maybe the guys who programmed this stuff understand;
>> I sure don't. I just want to be able to set the labels according to what
>> they say can be done... so shy not have a clear and concise explanation?
>>
>> Do people who write this stuff ever read it? Tell me that its clear and
>> simple and to the point... so far, I have been running back and forth
>> between half a dozen web pages trying to understand what is going
>> on... and doing things through a dense fog does not produce creative
>> results!
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>>   
> ok, in short since i didn't see anyone answer this directly, your
> question of tunefs vs glabel:
>
> tunefs is for UFS: it labels a UFS filesystem, no matter the device,
> ie: ad or da. tunefs is part of the filesystem utilities for UFS.
> good example, can't tunefs -L SWAP /dev/ad0s1b if it is a swap. you
> can glabel it.
>
> glabel is for labeling a device itself. you can glabel an ntfs
> filesystem or ext2, whatever.
>
>
Thanks for that, Michael.
But can you explain what this means? It just is not clear for me.
"# tu;nefs -L home /dev/da3"
This puts a label on that disk? So now it can be referred to as home?
da3 = home ?

I'll try to delve into the man glabel further... but things still look
murky.