On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 01:36:38PM -0500, Ted Unangst wrote:
Tati Chevron wrote:
I have never understood exactly why people have so much difficulty installing
a recent OpenBSD system on an encrypted partition.
Assuming amd64 or i386:
Basically, you boot bsd.rd as normal, and drop to a shell.
Which nobody does for an otherwise normal install.
Your point being? Am I giving instructions for a 'normal install'?
I use the shell option during install all the time. If you don't like it, don't
use it, but to imply that it's some kind of strange corner case is completely
wrong.
And then...
If the disk you want to use previously had unencrypted data on it that you
want to erase, you can blank the disk with dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/your_device.
Then invoke
Then invoke
Then invoke
Make a device node
Blank the first part
Repeat the fdisk step
If you have done this once, it's possible to do it again. But let's be honest.
This is not obvious. At all. It requires not just knowing which commands to
run, but also extensive knowledge about how disks and softraid work behind the
scenes.
Rubbish. If you have no UNIX knowledge at all, it's not obvious.
If you have used any PC based OS before, you will know about fdisk. If you have
used any BSD-like UNIX system before, you will know about disklabel. If you
have basic UNIX knowledge, you will know about device nodes. No advanced level
knowledge whatsoever involved in this.
Every step apart from the use of bioctl is either completely obvious or can be
learned with five minutes of reading manpages.
If you haven't ever used UNIX before, or have difficulty reading a manpage, then
gaining a basic knowledge of the system should be a priority before worrying
about softraid, anyway.
Maybe it's not obvious for you, but it didn't take me long to work it out the
first time I wanted to install on a softraid volume.
Besides, I included steps that were not even necessary. You don't need to
blank the disk first, nor repeat the manual fdisk step on the softraid device.
So, at a minimum you can just:
1. Drop to a shell
2. Fdisk
3. Disklabel
4. Bioctl
5. Return to installer
...and everything should work. Fdisk within the installer will complain about
the corrupt partition table, but really you're being unrealistic by suggesting
that the whole process of setting up a softraid volume during install is at
beyond someone with a basic knowledge of computers and a degree of patience.
--
Tati Chevron
Perl and FORTRAN specialist.
SWABSIT development and migration department.
http://www.swabsit.com
