From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 4 06:09:30 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 736D516A4CE for ; Fri, 4 Mar 2005 06:09:30 +0000 (GMT) Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D5EB843D54 for ; Fri, 4 Mar 2005 06:09:29 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd-questions@m.gmane.org) Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1D75v9-0000Vk-Bf for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Fri, 04 Mar 2005 07:04:19 +0100 Received: from jesse.guardiani.us ([216.64.98.233]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 04 Mar 2005 07:04:19 +0100 Received: from jesse by jesse.guardiani.us with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 04 Mar 2005 07:04:19 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: Jesse Guardiani Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:10:05 -0500 Organization: WingNET Lines: 103 Message-ID: References: <422792AA.1080301@wilderness.homeip.net> <200503031839.15265.jesse@wingnet.net> <4227AF9F.5070308@eng.ufl.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: jesse.guardiani.us User-Agent: KNode/0.8.2 X-Mail-Copies-To: never Sender: news X-Gmane-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-Gmane-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: freebsd-questions@m.gmane.org X-MailScanner-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: /boot like linux! X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: jesse@wingnet.net List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 06:09:30 -0000 Bob Johnson wrote: > Jesse Guardiani wrote: > >>On Thursday 03 March 2005 5:41 pm, [someone] wrote: >> >> >>> >>>I'm not sure I understand the problem. If you don't want to create more >>>partitions, then don't. You can make an 80gb (or 300gb, or whatever) >>>drive into two partitions - a swap partition (2gig) and a / partition >>>(78 gig) and install FreeBSD just fine. >>> >>> >> >>Doesn't the boot partition have to NOT have soft updates though? >> >> > No, I don't think so. Then why doesn't sysinstall enable soft updates on the root FS by default? >>I created the setup you described about a year ago with 5.2.1, and >>I had serious problems if the system ever hard rebooted after a >>power failure. Single user manual fsck's and all that. >> >> >> >> > That configuration should not make serious fs corruption more likely, it > just > makes it more likely to happen on the / partition (!). :) > In general, the > FreeBSD > filesystem is highly tolerant of things like power failures, and should > be even > better when softupdates is turned on. But it can fail, and 5.2.1 was NOT > considered a production release, so that could have also played a role in > your problems. I don't remember if softupdates had problems on 5.2.1 or > not. Look, I'm not new to FreeBSD. I know all of this. I just want to know if it's possible to tell my boot loader which device my root partition is on. >>>It's *best* to make more >>>partitions (esp for /var) so that if something goes out of control >>>logging, or you just neglect your logs, it doesn't go and fill up your >>>only (ie / ) partition. Like most *nix OS's, it can be as simple or as >>>complicated as you want it to be. >>> >>> >> >>I want / + /boot. It's that simple. >> >> >> > > What are you really trying to accomplish? Reliability and efficient use of disk space. > You want to run softupdates > on / ? No, I want to consolidate all of my mount points while simultaneously running softupdates on everything BUT the boot partition. > I believe it is perfectly acceptable to use softupdates on the root > partition these > days. I don't. It hasn't worked well in the past. > The Handbook recommends turning on softupdates for all filesystems. > See > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/configtuning-disk.html > > I'm pretty sure my test system at home has only / and swap (because it > has a small hard drive), and uses softupdates on /. I'll check when I get > home. Yes, please let me know how well it responds to a hard power cycle. A normal FreeBSD system without softupdates on the root or boot partition should come right back up without a manual fsck. In my experience, if softupdates are used on the root partition and the root partition doubles as the boot partition then you'll have much more difficulty recovering from a power failure. -- Jesse Guardiani, Systems Administrator WingNET Internet Services, P.O. Box 2605 // Cleveland, TN 37320-2605 423-559-LINK (v) 423-559-5145 (f) http://www.wingnet.net