Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Gary Palmer]

On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 09:02:14AM -0700, Chris wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 16:17:31 +0200 Toomas Soome tso...@me.com said
> 
> > > On 17. Mar 2020, at 15:51, Matthew Seaman  wrote:
> > > > On 17/03/2020 12:58, Florian Limberger wrote:
> > >> On 16.03.20 23:33, Chris wrote:
> > >> >>> For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I
> > >>> only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.
> > >> >> If you only use FreeBSD, and also use ZFS, you might find beadm[1]
> > >> interesting.
> > >> >> [1]: https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/beadm
> > >> > > Did you know that the system now comes with bectl(8) which is
> > very
> > > similar to beadm?  As far as I can tell, the biggest difference is that
> > > if you have more than one ZFS in your boot environment then:
> > > >beadm create FOO
> > > > is actually equivalent to
> > > >bectl create -r FOO
> > > > ie. turning on the recursive functionality in bectl.
> > > > However, this is not really what the OP was asking about.  As I
> > > understand it, they were looking for something that would allow choosing
> > > between several independent installations of different versions of
> > > FreeBSD, rather than having multiple environments in the same
> > > installation.  You can achieve pretty much the same effect though --
> > > there is a boot menu option to switch between BEs.  You would have to
> > > manage any ported software between the different OS versions, perhaps by
> > > including /usr/local and /var/db/pkg are both parts of your BEs.
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Matthew
> > >
> > 
> > BE???s can solve some scenarios. However, it is easy to add support for few
> > more. The current BE menu is populated automatically from the zfs. However,
> > it is also simple task to add a file parser to it and read menu file with
> > entries with different pool (we only need to activate such entries same way
> > as it is currently done for ???normal??? BE, or entries with chain load).
> > Read this menu file first and zfs BE list after, and you have BE menu with
> > manual and automatic entries. Can be implemented within few hours.
> > 
> A *huge* thanks for all the thoughtful replies!
> In detail. I maintain *many* ports, and it's not always enough to ensure
> that they build properly. In some cases I need to ensure they actually
> operate on FreeBSD/some-version. To test for building; it's been enough for
> me to spin up any number of jails using whatever (fbsd) revision I'm testing
> against. I had/am hoping that I can create a similar environment. That allows
> for pouring a (fbsd) revision on a slice, and actually booting into it *and*
> a DE. This requires (in my mind) the necessity to dedicate a box for that
> task. This is (currently) all on GPT/UFS scheme/slices. I use the pre-created
> revision(s) I already use in my jails, which are all tarballs named after
> the version-revision.
> disk0:
> gpart destroy -F ada0
> gpart create -s GPT ada0
> gpart add -t freebsd-boot -l  ... ada0
> gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -l workdrive -s  ada0
> ...
> gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -l 11R-rXX -s  ada0
> gpart add -t freebsd-usf -l 12S-rXX -s  ada0
> gpart add -t freebsd-usf -l 12C-rXX -s  ada0
> ...
> disk1:
> one *giant* unbootable slice containing all the tarred up revisions I work
> with.
> Boot into workdrive; which also mounts disk1; newfs a slice && unpack
> the appropriate archive onto the newly formatted slice. Then *attempt* to
> boot into it after bouncing the box. The last part is the one I'm asking this
> question for. It seems to me that /boot on any one of the slices should have
> enough in it to be a legal candidate to boot into. It seems that it *should*
> be possible to get there with whats already available on the beginning of the
> drive. I'd use any one of the ZFS suggestions, except the spare I'm working
> with is only a SandyBridge. So probably not powerful enough to manage the
> overhead required.
> 
> I hope this clears things up, and isn't *too* verbose. Thanks for all the
> valuable input I received, and any additional enlightenment that might 
> follow! :)

Hi,

Why not use VirtualBox and different VMs with different versions?  That
would seem to be easier than messing with boot environments, assuming
the hardware has enough RAM to support VBOX.

Gary

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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Chris]

On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 16:17:31 +0200 Toomas Soome tso...@me.com said


> On 17. Mar 2020, at 15:51, Matthew Seaman  wrote:
> 
> On 17/03/2020 12:58, Florian Limberger wrote:

>> On 16.03.20 23:33, Chris wrote:
>> 
>>> For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I

>>> only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.
>> 
>> If you only use FreeBSD, and also use ZFS, you might find beadm[1]

>> interesting.
>> 
>> [1]: https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/beadm
>> 
> 
> Did you know that the system now comes with bectl(8) which is very

> similar to beadm?  As far as I can tell, the biggest difference is that
> if you have more than one ZFS in your boot environment then:
> 
>beadm create FOO
> 
> is actually equivalent to
> 
>bectl create -r FOO
> 
> ie. turning on the recursive functionality in bectl.
> 
> However, this is not really what the OP was asking about.  As I

> understand it, they were looking for something that would allow choosing
> between several independent installations of different versions of
> FreeBSD, rather than having multiple environments in the same
> installation.  You can achieve pretty much the same effect though --
> there is a boot menu option to switch between BEs.  You would have to
> manage any ported software between the different OS versions, perhaps by
> including /usr/local and /var/db/pkg are both parts of your BEs.
> 
> 	Cheers,
> 
> 	Matthew
> 


BE’s can solve some scenarios. However, it is easy to add support for few
more. The current BE menu is populated automatically from the zfs. However,
it is also simple task to add a file parser to it and read menu file with
entries with different pool (we only need to activate such entries same way
as it is currently done for “normal” BE, or entries with chain load).
Read this menu file first and zfs BE list after, and you have BE menu with
manual and automatic entries. Can be implemented within few hours. 


A *huge* thanks for all the thoughtful replies!
In detail. I maintain *many* ports, and it's not always enough to ensure
that they build properly. In some cases I need to ensure they actually
operate on FreeBSD/some-version. To test for building; it's been enough for
me to spin up any number of jails using whatever (fbsd) revision I'm testing
against. I had/am hoping that I can create a similar environment. That allows
for pouring a (fbsd) revision on a slice, and actually booting into it *and*
a DE. This requires (in my mind) the necessity to dedicate a box for that
task. This is (currently) all on GPT/UFS scheme/slices. I use the pre-created
revision(s) I already use in my jails, which are all tarballs named after
the version-revision.
disk0:
gpart destroy -F ada0
gpart create -s GPT ada0
gpart add -t freebsd-boot -l  ... ada0
gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -l workdrive -s  ada0
...
gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -l 11R-rXX -s  ada0
gpart add -t freebsd-usf -l 12S-rXX -s  ada0
gpart add -t freebsd-usf -l 12C-rXX -s  ada0
...
disk1:
one *giant* unbootable slice containing all the tarred up revisions I work
with.
Boot into workdrive; which also mounts disk1; newfs a slice && unpack
the appropriate archive onto the newly formatted slice. Then *attempt* to
boot into it after bouncing the box. The last part is the one I'm asking this
question for. It seems to me that /boot on any one of the slices should have
enough in it to be a legal candidate to boot into. It seems that it *should*
be possible to get there with whats already available on the beginning of the
drive. I'd use any one of the ZFS suggestions, except the spare I'm working
with is only a SandyBridge. So probably not powerful enough to manage the
overhead required.

I hope this clears things up, and isn't *too* verbose. Thanks for all the
valuable input I received, and any additional enlightenment that might follow! 
:)

--Chris


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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Toomas Soome]

> On 17. Mar 2020, at 15:51, Matthew Seaman  wrote:
> 
> On 17/03/2020 12:58, Florian Limberger wrote:
>> On 16.03.20 23:33, Chris wrote:
>> 
>>> For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I
>>> only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.
>> 
>> If you only use FreeBSD, and also use ZFS, you might find beadm[1]
>> interesting.
>> 
>> [1]: https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/beadm
>> 
> 
> Did you know that the system now comes with bectl(8) which is very
> similar to beadm?  As far as I can tell, the biggest difference is that
> if you have more than one ZFS in your boot environment then:
> 
>beadm create FOO
> 
> is actually equivalent to
> 
>bectl create -r FOO
> 
> ie. turning on the recursive functionality in bectl.
> 
> However, this is not really what the OP was asking about.  As I
> understand it, they were looking for something that would allow choosing
> between several independent installations of different versions of
> FreeBSD, rather than having multiple environments in the same
> installation.  You can achieve pretty much the same effect though --
> there is a boot menu option to switch between BEs.  You would have to
> manage any ported software between the different OS versions, perhaps by
> including /usr/local and /var/db/pkg are both parts of your BEs.
> 
>   Cheers,
> 
>   Matthew
> 

BE’s can solve some scenarios. However, it is easy to add support for few more. 
The current BE menu is populated automatically from the zfs. However, it is 
also simple task to add a file parser to it and read menu file with entries 
with different pool (we only need to activate such entries same way as it is 
currently done for “normal” BE, or entries with chain load). Read this menu 
file first and zfs BE list after, and you have BE menu with manual and 
automatic entries. Can be implemented within few hours. 

rgds,
Toomas



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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Chris]

On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 22:03:02 -0500 Karl Denninger k...@denninger.net said


On 3/16/2020 17:33, Chris wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 17:24:24 -0500 Karl Denninger k...@denninger.net said
>
>> On 3/16/2020 17:23, Chris wrote:
>> > I'm attempting to boot multiple versions of FreeBSD.
>> > I started with an install of older 11 with a (u)efi
>> > boot partition installed. I then grabbed an current 11
>> > usbstick, and installed that. Which stated it needed to
>> > install a (u)efi boot partition. I let it do it. But the
>> > new (additional) install doesn't show up at boot. Altho
>> > my UEFI BIOS sees it.
>> > I guess there are just too many uefi bios versions,
>> > and too many changes in the FreeBSD uefi boot code
>> > to expect consistent results over the long haul.
>> > Should I just convert the 1st efi (GPT) boot partition
>> > to a PMBR, and delete the second efi partition. Or is
>> > there a recommended bootmanager I can use to boot multiple
>> > versions of FreeBSD? Windows?
>> >
>> > Thank you!
>> >
>> > --Chris
>> >
>> Refind perhaps?
> Thanks for the reply, Karl! :)
> I've used that before for FreeBSD/MacOS combos. I'll look at it again.
>
> For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I
> only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.
>
> Thanks again!
>
Refind will find all the bootable EFI "elements" in the EFI partition
and menu them.  The question then becomes whether multiple efi loaders
can be told to each use a *different* partition to load the kernel from
(and thus the loader file, which in turn can tell it where the root
filesystem is.)

Reading through the man page it appears they may not be.  You could of
course interrupt it and manually select that, but I suspect that's not
what you want to have to do.

I use refind on a dual-boot (win10/FreeBSD) system but not with multiple
independent FreeBSD versions.

Thanks for all the detail, Karl. I was also looking at those details. It
occurs to me that an *ideal* arrangement might be the ability to name each
efi loader according to it's target, or probably better; (name) the directories
that hold the loaders. It just seems wasteful/inefficient to create x number
of efi partitions for x number of OSs. Maybe boot0 could be coerced info
something similar? I'm currently looking at Clover (popular with the
"hackintosh" users) that seems to do something similar.

Thanks again!

--Chris


--
Karl Denninger
k...@denninger.net 
/The Market Ticker/
/[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/



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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Matthew Seaman]

On 17/03/2020 12:58, Florian Limberger wrote:
> On 16.03.20 23:33, Chris wrote:
> 
>> For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I
>> only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.
> 
> If you only use FreeBSD, and also use ZFS, you might find beadm[1]
> interesting.
> 
> [1]: https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/beadm
> 

Did you know that the system now comes with bectl(8) which is very
similar to beadm?  As far as I can tell, the biggest difference is that
if you have more than one ZFS in your boot environment then:

beadm create FOO

is actually equivalent to

bectl create -r FOO

ie. turning on the recursive functionality in bectl.

However, this is not really what the OP was asking about.  As I
understand it, they were looking for something that would allow choosing
between several independent installations of different versions of
FreeBSD, rather than having multiple environments in the same
installation.  You can achieve pretty much the same effect though --
there is a boot menu option to switch between BEs.  You would have to
manage any ported software between the different OS versions, perhaps by
including /usr/local and /var/db/pkg are both parts of your BEs.

Cheers,

Matthew



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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Tomoaki AOKI]

On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 01:31:59 +0300
Andrey Fesenko  wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 1:24 AM Chris  wrote:
> >
> > I'm attempting to boot multiple versions of FreeBSD.
> > I started with an install of older 11 with a (u)efi
> > boot partition installed. I then grabbed an current 11
> > usbstick, and installed that. Which stated it needed to
> > install a (u)efi boot partition. I let it do it. But the
> > new (additional) install doesn't show up at boot. Altho
> > my UEFI BIOS sees it.
> > I guess there are just too many uefi bios versions,
> > and too many changes in the FreeBSD uefi boot code
> > to expect consistent results over the long haul.
> > Should I just convert the 1st efi (GPT) boot partition
> > to a PMBR, and delete the second efi partition. Or is
> > there a recommended bootmanager I can use to boot multiple
> > versions of FreeBSD? Windows?
> >
> 
> upgrade system and use
> https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=efibootmgr&sektion=8&manpath=freebsd-release-ports
> ;)
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Or if you want boot-time selection, try the patch proposed on Bug 207940
[1]. efibootmgr can be used only for "next boot and later", IIUC.

The latest patch is for head and stable/12. Applicable on top
of /usr/src.

Patch for stable/11 is NOT tested / maintained for more than one year,
so possibly doesn't apply / work anymore.

 [1] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=207940

-- 
Tomoaki AOKI
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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Florian Limberger]

On 16.03.20 23:33, Chris wrote:

> For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I
> only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.

If you only use FreeBSD, and also use ZFS, you might find beadm[1]
interesting.

[1]: https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/beadm

Regards

-flo
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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Karl Denninger]

On 3/16/2020 17:33, Chris wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 17:24:24 -0500 Karl Denninger k...@denninger.net said
>
>> On 3/16/2020 17:23, Chris wrote:
>> > I'm attempting to boot multiple versions of FreeBSD.
>> > I started with an install of older 11 with a (u)efi
>> > boot partition installed. I then grabbed an current 11
>> > usbstick, and installed that. Which stated it needed to
>> > install a (u)efi boot partition. I let it do it. But the
>> > new (additional) install doesn't show up at boot. Altho
>> > my UEFI BIOS sees it.
>> > I guess there are just too many uefi bios versions,
>> > and too many changes in the FreeBSD uefi boot code
>> > to expect consistent results over the long haul.
>> > Should I just convert the 1st efi (GPT) boot partition
>> > to a PMBR, and delete the second efi partition. Or is
>> > there a recommended bootmanager I can use to boot multiple
>> > versions of FreeBSD? Windows?
>> >
>> > Thank you!
>> >
>> > --Chris
>> >
>> Refind perhaps?
> Thanks for the reply, Karl! :)
> I've used that before for FreeBSD/MacOS combos. I'll look at it again.
>
> For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I
> only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.
>
> Thanks again!
>
Refind will find all the bootable EFI "elements" in the EFI partition
and menu them.  The question then becomes whether multiple efi loaders
can be told to each use a *different* partition to load the kernel from
(and thus the loader file, which in turn can tell it where the root
filesystem is.)

Reading through the man page it appears they may not be.  You could of
course interrupt it and manually select that, but I suspect that's not
what you want to have to do.

I use refind on a dual-boot (win10/FreeBSD) system but not with multiple
independent FreeBSD versions.

-- 
Karl Denninger
k...@denninger.net 
/The Market Ticker/
/[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/


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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Chris]

On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 17:24:24 -0500 Karl Denninger k...@denninger.net said


On 3/16/2020 17:23, Chris wrote:
> I'm attempting to boot multiple versions of FreeBSD.
> I started with an install of older 11 with a (u)efi
> boot partition installed. I then grabbed an current 11
> usbstick, and installed that. Which stated it needed to
> install a (u)efi boot partition. I let it do it. But the
> new (additional) install doesn't show up at boot. Altho
> my UEFI BIOS sees it.
> I guess there are just too many uefi bios versions,
> and too many changes in the FreeBSD uefi boot code
> to expect consistent results over the long haul.
> Should I just convert the 1st efi (GPT) boot partition
> to a PMBR, and delete the second efi partition. Or is
> there a recommended bootmanager I can use to boot multiple
> versions of FreeBSD? Windows?
>
> Thank you!
>
> --Chris
>
Refind perhaps?

Thanks for the reply, Karl! :)
I've used that before for FreeBSD/MacOS combos. I'll look at it again.

For the record. I'm *only* using FreeBSD in this situation. I
only mentioned Windows above, for the use of it's boot manager.

Thanks again!

--Chris



--
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k...@denninger.net 
/The Market Ticker/
/[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/



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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Andrey Fesenko]

On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 1:24 AM Chris  wrote:
>
> I'm attempting to boot multiple versions of FreeBSD.
> I started with an install of older 11 with a (u)efi
> boot partition installed. I then grabbed an current 11
> usbstick, and installed that. Which stated it needed to
> install a (u)efi boot partition. I let it do it. But the
> new (additional) install doesn't show up at boot. Altho
> my UEFI BIOS sees it.
> I guess there are just too many uefi bios versions,
> and too many changes in the FreeBSD uefi boot code
> to expect consistent results over the long haul.
> Should I just convert the 1st efi (GPT) boot partition
> to a PMBR, and delete the second efi partition. Or is
> there a recommended bootmanager I can use to boot multiple
> versions of FreeBSD? Windows?
>

upgrade system and use
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=efibootmgr&sektion=8&manpath=freebsd-release-ports
;)
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Re: what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Karl Denninger]

On 3/16/2020 17:23, Chris wrote:
> I'm attempting to boot multiple versions of FreeBSD.
> I started with an install of older 11 with a (u)efi
> boot partition installed. I then grabbed an current 11
> usbstick, and installed that. Which stated it needed to
> install a (u)efi boot partition. I let it do it. But the
> new (additional) install doesn't show up at boot. Altho
> my UEFI BIOS sees it.
> I guess there are just too many uefi bios versions,
> and too many changes in the FreeBSD uefi boot code
> to expect consistent results over the long haul.
> Should I just convert the 1st efi (GPT) boot partition
> to a PMBR, and delete the second efi partition. Or is
> there a recommended bootmanager I can use to boot multiple
> versions of FreeBSD? Windows?
>
> Thank you!
>
> --Chris
>
Refind perhaps?


-- 
Karl Denninger
k...@denninger.net 
/The Market Ticker/
/[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/


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what 3rd party boot mgr is required to boot multiple freebsd versions?

[Chris]

I'm attempting to boot multiple versions of FreeBSD.
I started with an install of older 11 with a (u)efi
boot partition installed. I then grabbed an current 11
usbstick, and installed that. Which stated it needed to
install a (u)efi boot partition. I let it do it. But the
new (additional) install doesn't show up at boot. Altho
my UEFI BIOS sees it.
I guess there are just too many uefi bios versions,
and too many changes in the FreeBSD uefi boot code
to expect consistent results over the long haul.
Should I just convert the 1st efi (GPT) boot partition
to a PMBR, and delete the second efi partition. Or is
there a recommended bootmanager I can use to boot multiple
versions of FreeBSD? Windows?

Thank you!

--Chris


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