From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Fri Oct 2 20:25:18 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A97F0A0E9D1 for ; Fri, 2 Oct 2015 20:25:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from milios@ccsys.com) Received: from cargobay.net (cargobay.net [198.178.123.147]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8AE751CD7 for ; Fri, 2 Oct 2015 20:25:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from milios@ccsys.com) Received: from [192.168.0.4] (cblmdm72-240-160-19.buckeyecom.net [72.240.160.19]) by cargobay.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 0F8EF25F; Fri, 2 Oct 2015 20:25:10 +0000 (UTC) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (1.0) Subject: Re: Geom question From: "Chad J. Milios" X-Mailer: iPhone Mail (13A452) In-Reply-To: <560EDE45.3040605@hiwaay.net> Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2015 16:25:08 -0400 Cc: FreeBSD Questions !!!! Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <3D81C7BC-1A31-4046-88B7-50F25EA3B952@ccsys.com> References: <560EDE45.3040605@hiwaay.net> To: "William A. Mahaffey III" X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2015 20:25:18 -0000 > On Oct 2, 2015, at 3:41 PM, William A. Mahaffey III wrote= : >=20 > I am prepping to provision 2 boxen w/ FreeBSD 9.3R, preferably from a thum= b drive. I would like to add a 'utils' directory w/ some scripts I wrote to a= utomate the partitioning/slicing of the HDD's (2X on 1 box, 8X on the other)= , & also accumulate output from the install process in case questions arise.= To that end, I am planning on partitioning/slicing a thumb drive, prepping i= t to be bootable following examples on the gpart man page, & copying verbati= m stuff from the memstick.img for 9.3R that I downloaded a while back, as we= ll as adding my utils directory. Reading up on gpart & geom raises 1 questio= n: can I do all these preps on a disk image file I create w/ dd, or do i do t= hem in place on the target memstick, then dd the results onto an on-disk ima= ge for safekeeping ? Put another way, can a disk image created by dd be a 'g= eom' for gpart ? TIA & have a good one. >=20 > --=20 >=20 > William A. Mahaffey III In a way, yes. `mdconfig -f filename` will make your file accessible as a vi= rtual device.=