Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 19:47:56 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas <charon@labs.gr> To: Ralph Dratman <ralph@maxsoft.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Why does the label editor not show existing mount points? Message-ID: <20020629164756.GB5643@hades.hell.gr> In-Reply-To: <v04210104b942bc9e191a@[192.168.1.27]> References: <v04210104b942bc9e191a@[192.168.1.27]>
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On 2002-06-28 21:23 +0000, Ralph Dratman wrote: > In the process, I visited the filesystem label editor in sysinstall > several times. On each occasion, I had to refer back to an existing > df output to remind me where each filesystem is normally mounted, > because the label program does not fill in existing mount points. Because the information of the mount point is not stored within the disk label? There are far too many things that could be wrong with a label editor that tried to 'guess' where an existing partition of an existing slice is mounted. Last night, I used fdisk to 'join' two slices and make space in the slice table of a machine for a new partition. A disk had: /dev/ad0s1 [ /dev/ad0s1a => mounted on / ] /dev/ad0s2 [ /dev/ad0s2e => mounted on /usr ] /dev/ad0s3 [ /dev/ad0s3b => used as swap ] /dev/ad0s4 [ /dev/ad0s4e => mounted on /var ] The disk also had around 29 GB of unused space at the end of the disk, which was not mapped to any existing slice. Using fdisk, I deleted /dev/ad0s4 and /dev/ad0s3. Then I created a new /dev/ad0s3 that covered the entire area previously occupied by /dev/ad0s3. The new /dev/ad0s3 slice was split in two partitions (one that mapped to the same sectors as the previous /dev/ad0s3b and one that mapped to the same sectors as the previous /dev/ad0s4e (which was now called /dev/ad0s3e)). I used the now unused /dev/ad0s4 slice to create a new partition, that allowed me to use the free space of the disk; a nice 29 GB slice that I wanted to mount under /work. I needed to reboot a couple of times, in order to let the kernel read the on-disk slice table and then allow me to edit the on-disk label of the /dev/ad0s3 slice. During those reboots, a bit of editing was required to /etc/fstab to make sure that the kernel didn't attempt to mount anything from the partitions I had been mendling with. If the label editors or fdisk tried to 'guess' what I wanted to do and showed me information about the current mount points it would have been plainly wrong, obsolete pieces of irrelevant information, and certainly confusing :-) > I discovered fstab more or less by accident and now realize I can > edit the mount points much more easily by modifying that file. But, > seems to me, someone who doesn't know this, and is reworking an > install, might be better served by using sysinstall with the > existing mount points shown. The fstab file is a very important part of the system configuration files. You should have already known about it. At least, if one wants to mess with slices and partitions within those slices, it is expected that he has done a bit of reading on what these are and how FreeBSD can find them, mount them or make any use of them. - Giorgos To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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