From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mon Oct 5 15:36:48 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 2640999A6DC for ; Mon, 5 Oct 2015 15:36:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E0740FED for ; Mon, 5 Oct 2015 15:36:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-41-64.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.41.64]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id EFC9B3CDE9; Mon, 5 Oct 2015 17:36:44 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id t95FaiKW009089; Mon, 5 Oct 2015 17:36:45 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2015 17:36:44 +0200 From: Polytropon To: "William A. Mahaffey III" Cc: FreeBSD Questions !!!! Subject: Re: Install issues Message-Id: <20151005173644.d3b9c5ce.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <5612938F.4080508@hiwaay.net> References: <5612938F.4080508@hiwaay.net> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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: Mon, 05 Oct 2015 15:36:48 -0000 On Mon, 5 Oct 2015 10:18:49 -0453.75, William A. Mahaffey III wrote: > I am attempting to provision a new box w/ FreeBSD 9.3R, using a > customized USB drive w/ the default install media plus some scripts I > conjured up to expedite partitioning/slicing of HDD's. I plugged the USB > stick in & powered on. Though the UEFI BIOS gave my no options to > configure boot order, it did figure out that the USB stick was there & > bootable. I booted from that & the loading proceeded up to the regular > FreeBSD 'choose boot options' screen, w/ multi-user, single user, etc. > (6 choices total, w/ the ASCII-art logo). I let it go w/ option 1 (bad > choice :-) ? ) & it failed to get booted, but gave me a choice of boot > devices at the 'mountfs' (or some such) prompt. mountroot> :-) It's being presented by the kernel's root partition mounting mechanism (see sys/kern/vfs_mount.c). > I entered > 'ufs:/dev/da0s1a rw' & it proceeded to boot the installer. If I remember correctly, the boot process will mount root read-only, this is the default behaviour of single-user mode. That's why there is no "rw" option at this prompt; "rw" will therefore be ignored. Otherwise, the options from /etc/fstab would apply. > At 1st > prompt, i chose 'Shell' & dropped to the shell to run my utilities. The > 1st problem was that the USB media was mounted 'ro', *not* 'rw' as I > asked, making it tough to log what was going on to use in queries such > as this one when problems arose. My script completed down to an error in > an innocuous echo statement, but subsequent df revealed no customized > partitions visible for the install to proceed with, & little way to > discern what had happened, since everything scrolled past too fast & too > far to recover. The df command will only consider _mounted_ partitions. Check for the device nodes (and maybe labels) - if they are available, mount them, then use df. The command would be "mount -uw /", or "mount -u -o rw /". The ability to write to / maybe is the problem why no further partitions got mounted...? > I never found a magic key-stroke combo to page up in > console mode, so I am mostly in the dark. There is a nice little key, called "Scroll Lock", and it actually does what's printed on it: it locks the screen (cursor disappears) and you can use the vertical cursor keys and page keys to scroll up and down. Press the lock key again, and you can continue where you left the screen. Maybe the key is so old and so obvious that you didn't see it. :-) No, seriously: Scroll Lock isn't supported on many systems to work as it should. FreeBSD is an excellent exception here. > Is there a way to force the > booted root drive to be mounted 'rw' ? Probably you can do this with a custom entry in /etc/rc.local (if the boot image processes /etc/rc). -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...