The "New BSD Installer" thread has shown me that I am totally obsolete in disk partitioning.

[Edwin L. Culp W.]

2012/2/20 Peter Maloney <peter.maloney at brockmann-consult.de>

> Am 17.02.2012 21:08, schrieb Edwin L. Culp W.:
> > If such a thing exists,  I need a howto in mixing and matching all the
> > different partitioning options and combinations, pro's and con's, for as
> > many modern situations as possible. Any suggestions appreciated.
> To create a full document from scratch explaining everything is likely
> beyond the capabilites of any individual. If you had more specific
> questions or topics, it would help us to help you more efficiently. What
> are you looking for? A gpart howto? Mirroring and other types of
> devices? mbr vs gpt? Whether or not to have separate partitions for /usr
> and /var, etc.?
>
> And then when you get your answers, submit a PR including the details of
> what you expected in the handbook, and what you learned elsewhere that
> should be added, and then in the PR, ask them to add what you wrote in
> the PR to the handbook.
>
> Personally, I can tell you a bunch about gpart, zfs, and explain or
> elaborate on technical jargon, but I don't know too much about
> sysinstall, bsdlabel, UFS, different boot options or FreeBSD software
> raid configuration files. All my FreeBSD machines are running pure ZFS,
> and I've only created temporary gpart, gstripe, etc. for tests so far.
> If I needed to put together a real software raid UFS system, I would
> need to look through documentation.
>
> > I did look at the handbook but it seems to have changed little and uses
> > sysinstall for the examples at:
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-steps.html#SYSINSTALL-FDISK2
> >
> > Thanks for any suggestions.  I apologize for my ignorance.
> >
> > ed
> >
> > P.S.  I have wanted to understand and try things like the following
> comment
> > to the thread,  but I have no idea where to begin or options for doing
> it.
> >
> >             Sorry, I wasnt suggesting that you should always mirror
> >             the indiviudual partititons - just I happen to do that where
> >             I am mixing ZFS and gmirror. Obviosuly you dont want to
> create
> >             lots of little mirrors if you dont have to. But even with
> >             one mirror, you can mirror a big partiton covering the whole
> >             drive, and then carve that up with bsdlabel. No need to ever
> > mirror
> >              the actual raw discs, and it works with GPT.
>
> I think he means something like this, but I don't know how to use
> bsdlabel, so here is gpart (one of the new things you should learn
> anyway). And also I don't know if the result of my code below would even
> boot, which bootcode to use, or what to put in /boot/loader.conf to make
> it boot.
>
> # create a gpt table (rather than MBR)
> gpart create -s gpt da0
> #(not sure... boot loader needed outside the mirror?)
> gpart add -s 64k -l boot1 -t freebsd-boot da0
> # add a slice for your mirror (aka. partition).
> # from quote:  "But even with one mirror,"
> gpart add -s 80g -l mirrorslice1 -t mbr da0
>
> # set up the second disk
> gpart create -s gpt da1
> #(not sure... boot loader needed outside the mirror?)
> gpart add -s 64k -l boot2 -t freebsd-boot da1
> # from quote: "you can mirror *a big partiton* covering the whole drive"
> gpart add -s 80g -l mirrorslice2 -t mbr da1
>
> # Not sure if "mbr" is the right choice for the type above... I also
> tried guessing "gpt" which didn't work and is not in the manual.
>
> # create the mirror device (I don't know the proper way to do this... I
> just tried this and don't know if it persists on boot, etc.)
> # from quote: "*you can mirror* a big partiton covering the whole drive"
> gmirror load
> gmirror label mymirror gpt/mirrorslice1 gpt/mirrorslice2
>
> # slice the mirror device as if it was a regular disk
> # from quote: "and then carve that up with bsdlabel" (but I used gpart
> instead of bsdlabel)
> gpart create -s gpt gmirror/mymirror
> gpart add -s 1g -l root -t freebsd-ufs gmirror/mymirror
> gpart add -s 1g -l usr -t freebsd-ufs gmirror/mymirror
>
> newfs gpt/root
> newfs gpt/usr
>
>
>
> Further explanation of other things he said not involved in the above:
>
> "wasn't suggesting that you should always mirror the individual
> partititons"
> gpart create -s gpt da0
> gpart create -s gpt da1
> gpart add -s 1g -l root1 -t freebsd-ufs da0
> gpart add -s 1g -l root2 -t freebsd-ufs da1
> gpart add -s 1g -l usr1 -t freebsd-ufs da0
> gpart add -s 1g -l usr2 -t freebsd-ufs da1
> ...
> gmirror label rootmirror gpt/root1 gpt/root2
> gmirror label mymirror gpt/usr1 gpt/usr2
> ...
>
> #and an example of what he said you don't need to do:
> # from quote: "No need to ever mirror actual raw discs"
> gmirror label mymirror da0 da1
>
> raw disk = da0
>
> gpt slice/partition = da0p1 where 1 is the index seen in "gpart show"
> or
> gpt slice/partition = gpt/root1 where root1 is the label seen in "gpart
> show -l" and set in "gpart add ... -l labelhere"
>
> mirror device = mirror/mymirror
>
> etc.
>
> Be sure to align properly. I didn't do any aligning above. Use the "-a
> ..." option. Units in gpart are sectors unless you specify another, and
> sizes are in base-2 (eg. "-s 5g" would be a size of 5 GiB not 5GB)
>
> And you would also need a boot slice separate from the mirror unless the
> bootloader understands the mirror, and install the bootloader on both
> disks. I don't know if it does support this, or if it will work at all
> this way. You need to find this out somewhere other than from me.
>
> I will try several options and configurations on the new machine and will
> hopefully learn to send my results in a howto type format for raw beginners
> in all the new options.  The most confusing part for me, now, is how to mix
> and match the options for better results.
>

Thanks so much for your reply.

ed


>
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