Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 21:09:13 -0700 From: perryh@pluto.rain.com To: amvandemore@gmail.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: sysinstall vs gmirror Message-ID: <4c943b69.bsyYirMmUuB/1m0g%perryh@pluto.rain.com> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimJ-fidbrRPYGynHLQj1-1nqo=-byo9zxXCK049@mail.gmail.com> References: <4c83190a.SG%2BLIhPWaGtmaaeL%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <4C835474.7060707@infracaninophile.co.uk> <4c8487cc.Rh42YL91jTIv09e0%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <4c84ce46.sHyLaI%2BH%2BUzM%2BJ/y%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <4c8c5260.%2BCOCCpHgloxRSY2/%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <4C8CD2A4.3020203@infracaninophile.co.uk> <4c8da53d.pPK/NzHAHPlQPOfh%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <AANLkTimJ-fidbrRPYGynHLQj1-1nqo=-byo9zxXCK049@mail.gmail.com>
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Adam Vande More <amvandemore@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 11:14 PM, <perryh@pluto.rain.com> wrote: > > The part I don't know how to do is partitioning gm0 by hand. > > (I suppose it would require some sort of arcane incantations > > involving bsdlabel.) For all its limitations, sysinstall > > seems at least to know how to translate a reasonably human- > > readable representation of the desired slice and partition > > layout into the necessary fdisk and bsdlabel commands. > > I don't know of any exact howto, but the general principles are > laid out here: > > http://wiki.freebsd.org/RootOnZFS/GPTZFSBoot/Mirror I finally had time to (try to) read through that, and I'm having trouble locating a description of how to partition a gmirror. (The page seems oriented almost entirely to ZFS and gpart, the only mention of gmirror being in connection with swap.) I'm quite sure I don't want to attempt ZFS on a machine with only 512MB, and I'm not at all sure that a BIOS of this age would understand gpart. > It shows how to load geom modules from usb stick I had already figured out that part :) Fixit# ln -s /dist/boot/kernel /boot Fixit# gmirror load which is all I think I need until I get the mirror partitioned. > Next fdisk/gpart accordingly (don't forget to make it bootable). This is where I get stuck. I've partitioned the physical drives using sysinstall, but how do I go about partitioning gm0? > If your setup if GPT compatible, I recommend using it. How do I find out whether this setup is GPT compatible? > IMO, it's significantly more straightforward than the old > mbr style. I sure did not get that impression from reading gpart(8) :( For starters there seem to be at least 6 kernel options, of which I guess I may need 3: GEOM_PART_BSD, GEOM_PART_GPT, and GEOM_PART_MBR; there's apparently no "edit" function; and one has to puzzle out what is meant by a "protective MBR" as part of understanding how to make a GPT partition bootable.
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