gpart backup, restore and bootcode

[Janos Dohanics]

On Tue, 27 May 2014 07:51:56 -0600 (MDT)
Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 27 May 2014, Janos Dohanics wrote:
> 
> > Hello list members,
> >
> > Do the commands gpart backup and gpart restore also back up and
> > restore the bootcode? The gpart(8) man page says:
> >
> > "restore   Restore the partition table from a backup previously
> > created by the backup action and read from standard input.  Only the
> >           par- tition table is restored.  This action does not
> > affect the con- tent of partitions.  After restoring the partition
> >           table and writing bootcode if needed, user data must be
> >           restored from backup."
> >
> > I read this section as "yes" - is this correct?
> 
> To my knowledge, no.  The bootcode is separate from the partition
> data, and not included with gpart backup.
> 
> > I assume "yes" since my bootcode is embedded having been added
> > using "gpart bootcode -b ..." and thus "embed-ded in the
> > partitioning scheme's metadata".
> >
> > Is there a way to show/verify if bootcode is written to the disk?
> 
> Hmm.  'file -s /dev/ada0', although I think there is no way to tell
> when that bootcode was updated.

Thank you both.

-- 
Janos Dohanics