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Date:      Sat, 22 Jul 2000 15:54:20 +0200
From:      David Madore <david.madore@ens.fr>
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Setting the root filesystem permanently
Message-ID:  <20000722155420.A405@clipper.ens.fr>

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Hi.

I just installed 4.0-RELEASE on an i486 (33MHz, 16MB RAM, 1GB disk)
system (in case that matters, I installed by copying the distribution
CD on a Linux box on the local network and using that as an FTP
server).

Something seems to have gone awry in the the determination of the root
filesystem, because when the kernel boots, it uses "wd0s1a" as root
filesystem, whereas the fstab specifies "/dev/ad0s1a"; so the init
scripts can't remount root read-write, and, well, they sort of panic
(they give me a root shell).

I can solve this by passing the -a argument to the kernel:

[dmesg excerpt]
ad0: 1221MB <ST31277A> [2482/16/63] at ata0-master using BIOSPIO

Manual root filesystem specification:
  <fstype>:<device>  Mount <device> using filesystem <fstype>
                       eg. ufs:/dev/da0s1a
  ?                  List valid disk boot devices
  <empty line>       Abort manual input

mountroot> ufs:/dev/ad0s1a

But it seems I have to to that interactively.  Only this is not
acceptable for me, because this box must be able to reboot without
human interaction (ultimately, it should have no screen) beyond
perhaps pressing a reset button from time to time.

So, how do I specify the root device once and for all?

Incidentally, why this change from wd* to ad*?  The wd(4) man page
exists, but man 4 ad returns nothing.

(Background: I'm an experienced GNU/Linux user, and I've also used
OpenBSD and Solaris.  But this is my first time with FreeBSD.)

Thanks for any help.

(Please Cc replies to me.)

Happy hacking,

-- 
     David A. Madore
    (david.madore@ens.fr,
     http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/madore/ )


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