Re: Reinstall without reformat

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Polytropon wrote:


On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 23:01:02 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote:

On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Polytropon wrote:


On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:24:30 -0400, Kenta Suzumoto wrote:

Hi all. Is it possible to install FreeBSD without formatting the disk?


Yes. The installer supports not formatting existing partitions.
The file system characteristica will be kept, possible content
will overwritten. Note that superfluous content will also be
kept, except of course you previously remove everything.


sysinstall supported that, but AFAIK bsdinstall does not.


Oh, seems you're right. I've checked The FreeBSD Handbook for
the relevant instructions for using bsdinstall at

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html

and

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-final-warning.html

and I didn't find an option to _not_ initialize existing partitions,
even though it seems you can assign existing partitions without any
problem. The remaining question: Will they be initialized again?


It is possible to mount filesystems manually from the shell and have 
bsdinstall continue with the install without formatting them.  It's been 
a while since I tried that, and I don't recall the exact details. 
bsdinstall(8) suggests it may be as easy as just having the existing 
filesystems mounted at /mnt.  Still, not something to try without a 
backup.

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Re: firefox: after update - version 23: can not swap tabs

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, O. Hartmann wrote:


FF is in my case 24, too:

pkg info firefox
firefox-24.0,1

Have you done updating the ports regarding

20130929

in /usr/ports/UPDATING? I did on all boxes and on all boxes I did the
tab-stickyness is present.


Firefox 24 allows tab moves for me on both 9-stable and 10-stable.

The pixman update missed some files for me, resolved by using pkg_libchk 
(from sysutils/bsdadminscripts) to find the ports that needed rebuilding 
and then rebuilding them.

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Re: Advice sought on Portmaster -Faf and deleted ports

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Scott Ballantyne wrote:


I'm following the recipe at the end of man portmaster for deleting and
reinstalling all my ports, which I have done many times in the
past. This time, I am getting errors on the portmaster -Faf step
involving deleted ports, and I'm not sure how to deal with this
easily.


What errors, exactly?


Well, for example:

portmaster -Faf
it starts to fetch a bunch of files
it finds a port which has been deleted, such as
linux-base-fc4
and it says, linux-base-fc4 has been deleted.
terminating
terminating
terminating
etc.


That's correct.  linux_base-fc4 is long gone (years), replaced by 
linux_base-f10.  portmaster sees no way to upgrade that port, so 
evidently it quits.


If you have ports that far out of date, the upgrade process is going to 
be long.  Ports where the system does not know the replacement will have 
to be handled manually.



So, I am seeking expert advice here. Is there a way to automate this
and keep myself out of trouble, or do I need to do a 'port-by-port'
upgrade of each port?


It should just work.  Have you converted to pkgng?



I dream of the day that the ports system will just work. I don't use
binary packages, are you saying that pkgng will deal with this issue
automatically?


No, the concern was that you might have already converted to pkgng but 
still used the old package tools.

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Re: Advice sought on Portmaster -Faf and deleted ports

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Scott Ballantyne wrote:



On Mon, 14 oct 2013, Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote:

On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Scott Ballantyne wrote:



What errors, exactly?


Well, for example:

portmaster -Faf
it starts to fetch a bunch of files
it finds a port which has been deleted, such as
linux-base-fc4
and it says, linux-base-fc4 has been deleted.
terminating
terminating
terminating
etc.


That's correct.  linux_base-fc4 is long gone (years), replaced by
linux_base-f10.  portmaster sees no way to upgrade that port, so
evidently it quits.


I understand why portmaster quits that port. It does seem like a bit
of over-kill to quit updating ALL ports because one is long
gone. Seems like it could do the others.


Some of them.  It could not update any ports that depend on missing 
ports, which conflicts with the -a meaning all.



If you have ports that far out of date, the upgrade process is going to
be long.  Ports where the system does not know the replacement will have
to be handled manually.


Actually, the last time I updated my ports was when I installed 9.0,
and I used the portmaster 'nuke all ports' method I was trying to
day. Since then, several dozen ports of been 'deleted' or 'renamed',
not just the linux_base-fc4. Seems in the case of ports which have
been renamed or replaced, this could in fact be simply automated in
most cases.


I think it does handle renamed ports.  Whether the ones it does not 
handle are due to missing functionality or because they are difficult or 
impossible to handle, don't know.

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Re: APC BE750G Power Saving Battery Back-UPS

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 13 Oct 2013, Carmel wrote:


I have the opportunity to replace an aging UPS with a new APC BE750G
Power Saving Battery Back-UPS one. My question is if anyone here has
ever used this device under FreeBSD. APC does not have, or at least I
couldn't find any, software for a FreeBSD system. Without the software,
the unit is basically useless.

I Googled and found an old message regarding FreeBSD and a similar UPS
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2004-October/062543.html
dated 10/2004. Are those issues still relevant? According to
http://www.apcupsd.com/manual/#freebsd I need to insure that this is
a SmartUPS The unit I am looking at does not qualify.

I might add that my present unit is connected to a Windows machine. I
intend to replace that one and hook up both PCs to it.


sysutils/apcupsd works with a lot of APC units.  Offhand, I know it 
works with a several-year-old Back-UPS XS unit (not mine), and with all 
my older Smart-UPS units.  Mac people say that apcupsd works with the 
BE750G: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100314155518972


The Smart-UPS models are preferred for better quality.  In some of the 
newer units, APC has gone to a proprietary communications protocol. 
The problem units are shown on the apcupsd.com site.

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Re: Advice sought on Portmaster -Faf and deleted ports

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 13 Oct 2013, Scott Ballantyne wrote:


Hi,

I'm following the recipe at the end of man portmaster for deleting and
reinstalling all my ports, which I have done many times in the
past. This time, I am getting errors on the portmaster -Faf step
involving deleted ports, and I'm not sure how to deal with this
easily.


What errors, exactly?


So, I am seeking expert advice here. Is there a way to automate this
and keep myself out of trouble, or do I need to do a 'port-by-port'
upgrade of each port?


It should just work.  Have you converted to pkgng?
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Re: 4K vs 512byte sector drives on Seagate Constellation E.2

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2013, aurfalien wrote:


Hi,

I've a Seagate constellation ES.2 which supports 4K sectors but diskinfo shows 
it as 512bytes;

da0 512 3000592982016   5860533168  0   0   364801  255 
63

I understand that Seagate ships these drives to be compatible with 512byte 
sectors so that older Windows OSs work on the.

But I'm unsure how to get this drive to report as having 4K sectors.


It does not need to report that, as long as the partitions are aligned 
to 4K blocks.  Seagate has some auto-alignment tech that seems 
reasonably effective.  I'd still make sure the partitions are aligned.



I'm really asking from a ZFS perspective as my vdevs show with an ashift of 9 
via the zdb command.

I'd rather forgo the gnop hack as I prefer a cleaner approach.


Using gnop is the way to force ZFS to use 4K blocks at present.  And 
this does not guarantee alignment with 4K disk blocks, which must be 
accomplished with partition alignment.

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Re: copying milllions of small files and millions of dirs

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2013, aurfalien wrote:



On Aug 15, 2013, at 11:46 PM, Nicolas KOWALSKI wrote:


On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 11:13:25AM -0700, aurfalien wrote:

Is there a faster way to copy files over NFS?


I would use find+cpio. This handles hard links, permissions, and in case
of later runs, will not copy files if they already exist on the
destination.

# cd /source/dir
# find . | cpio -pvdm /destination/dir



Old thread I know but cpio has proven twice as fast as rsync.

Trusty ol cpio.

Gonna try cpdup next.


Try sysutils/clone, too.
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Re: Why no ls on DVD or livefs.iso?

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2013, W. D. wrote:


At 08:47 10/6/2013, Warren Block wrote:

On Sun, 6 Oct 2013, W. D. wrote:


Booted with both.  Alt-F4 to get to command line.

Very limited commands: ls: not found.

Why?  What good are these disks if they don't have
the most basic of commands?


The emergency holographic shell was always very limited.  I suspect a
path thing, with it looking for commands on the installed system.  Old
bare-bones tricks like echo * help.


Trying to clone a hard disk that has an number
of bad sectors.  Trying to save most of my data.

Want to use recoverdisk, but can't get the
command line to work.


Use mfsBSD: http://mfsbsd.vx.sk/


Thanks, Warren.  MFSBSD worked for me.

Had to use 8.X because 9.X hangs.  I think it has something
to do with my PS2 mouse and keyboard.  9.X still only seems
to work with USB peripherals--or is something else going on?

I was a bit skittish using recoverdisk because I couldn't
find any explicit notation about source and target.

   # clone a hard disk
recoverdisk /dev/ad3 /dev/ad4

As it turns out, the first argument is the source and the
second is the target, as one might intuitively guess.  However,
I've been burned before by guesses, so I hope someone will
update the man pages to make this obvious.


It says

 recoverdisk [-b bigsize] [-r readlist] [-s interval] [-w writelist]
 source [destination]

That seems pretty clear, although the text does not really explain what 
happens if the optional destination is not given.  Output to stdout 
would be the standard expectation.

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Re: failed to create gmirror with the handbook instructions

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 8 Oct 2013, Andy Zammy wrote:


This is actually trickier than it first looked. First I got into single user 
mode by supplying 'shutdown now', but the tunefs commands all failed with the 
following:
#tunefs -j disable /dev/ada0s1a
Clearing journal flags from inode 4
tunefs: Failed to write journal inode: Operation not permitted
tunefs: soft updates journalling cleared but soft updates still set.
tunefs: remove .sujournal to reclaim space
tunefs: /dev/ada0s1a: failed to write superblock

I tried the dump command on the off-chance, and it failed with the original 
errors. Is there anything you can recommend?

I then noticed you specified to boot into single user more, so I restarted the 
machine, with only ada0 attached. Because the handbook wants me to use the 
mirror/gm0sX devices, I swapped
my fstab file back to the original. The boot loader now only seems to recognise 
the mirror/gm0 nodes, the original ada0sX are gone (though ada0 still shows up).


I don't know what would do that.  The device nodes on the original drive
should be untouched until it is added back to the mirror.  What does
  gpart show ada0s1
show?  Did you make a backup of the original drive first?  Is there an 
entry for vfs.root.mountfrom in /boot/loader.conf?


I'm not sure if it's acceptable to do the dump by booting the 1st hard 
drive using the mirror/gm0, and then dump to the 2nd hard drive by 
mounting what will be ada1sX. Is this okay to do?


Sorry, I don't quite understand the question.  The mirror will not be 
usable until a good copy of the original drive is made to it.

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Re: failed to create gmirror with the handbook instructions

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 8 Oct 2013, Andy Zammy wrote:



Thanks very much. Please could I make a suggestion that this be included in the 
handbook page?


Please do not top-post, it makes replies more difficult.

I have added a warning about SUJ to the top of the gmirror section in 
the Handbook.

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Re: failed to create gmirror with the handbook instructions

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 8 Oct 2013, Andy Zammy wrote:


# gpart show ada0s1
gpart: No such geom: ada0s1

By the way, this is after a restart of the machine.

There's nothing to back up, I'm installing a fresh os, so I just install on one 
drive, plug the other in, and start following the handbook instructions for 
this method. So the only
thing in loader.conf is geom_mirror_load=YES.

I'll rephrase the question: given that the handbook originally wanted me to 
dump from ada0s1 to the mounted mirror/gm0s1 (which was ada1 at the time), and 
I cannot do this, would it be
enough to dump from mirror/gm0s1 (which is what ada0 is now mounted as), to 
ada1s1 (even though this *should* be the other way around, it's equivalent as 
far as i can see, isn't it?)?


There is not much point in dumping from the mirror to another drive. 
The dump/restore is how the single drive is copied to the mirror.


On a fresh install, use the Shell mode of the installer to set up the 
mirror, then install directly to it.  There are some instructions on 
mountpoints in the bsdinstall man page.  This will avoid the lag of 
waiting for the second drive to sync.

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Re: How do I ring a bell?

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 7 Oct 2013, Frank Leonhardt wrote:

On 07/10/2013 13:06, Peter Boosten wrote:


echo CTRL-V CTRL-G should do the trick


Or, more easily, printf \a.

Alas, not. The console driver won't ring the BIOS bell on anything I've 
tried. It might on a desktop with a built-in sound card and speakers, but it 
won't do anything with the beep speaker. It's actually the same solution I 
mentioned in the first line (\a translates to 007 which is ctrl-G).


Make sure hw.syscons.bell is set to 1.  It can be changed at run time, 
like in /etc/sysctl.conf.  Some systems have it disabled (set to 0) 
because the bell is amazingly loud and piercing.  (Looking at you, 
Dell.)

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Re: failed to create gmirror with the handbook instructions

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 8 Oct 2013, Andy Zammy wrote:


Hi,

I used the second section of the handbook (20.4) to create a gmirror. In my
particular setup I had a 1GB /, 6GB swap, 1GB /tmp and the rest of the 1TB
drive was left for /usr

I had to deviate from the handbook when it came to running the dump +
restore commands, as the dump failed due to an issue with the journalling.
To get around this problem, I dropped into single user mode, so I could
remount root as read-only. The dump commands then worked. It specified in
the handbook to restart the machine, and boot from ada1.

It was at this point that I noticed something wasn't quite right. There was
a spew of 'not found/no such file or directory' messages. These were all
trying to reference libs and binaries that live in /usr.

I boot into single user mode, and upon checking the other partitions, I
notice that /tmp and /usr are empty, apart from a .snap file, and the
restoresymtable file.

Please could someone help me troubleshoot this problem? Let me know if you
need any more info, and I'll post it up asap.


dump does not work reliably on filesystems with SUJ enabled.  Turn off 
SUJ on the filesystems to be dumped by booting in single-user mode and 
running

  tunefs -j disable /dev/ada0whatever

Do each filesystem, then use dump.
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Re: Why no ls on DVD or livefs.iso?

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 6 Oct 2013, W. D. wrote:


Booted with both.  Alt-F4 to get to command line.

Very limited commands: ls: not found.

Why?  What good are these disks if they don't have
the most basic of commands?


The emergency holographic shell was always very limited.  I suspect a 
path thing, with it looking for commands on the installed system.  Old 
bare-bones tricks like echo * help.



Trying to clone a hard disk that has an number
of bad sectors.  Trying to save most of my data.

Want to use recoverdisk, but can't get the
command line to work.


Use mfsBSD: http://mfsbsd.vx.sk/
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Re: # portmaster -r pixman fails with !#/bin/sh list too long

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 3 Oct 2013, Antonio Olivares wrote:


Have tried that, but it rebuilds pixman, but then X bombs out blurting
out messages that libpixman.so is missing :(

I have tried to remove print/texlive-scheme-full; removed it, but then
run portmaster -R pixman, and portmaster -r pixman and the running of
it stops with message that !#/bin/sh .. argument too long and comes up
with texlive-?-?-_1 or similar.  Have not been successful in
fixing this issue.  I have 2 machines working and 2 not working
because of this.  I am running out of ideas.  Is there another way to
fix this issue manually, i.e, going to /usr/ports/x11/pixman and
rebuilding it there or have to go one by one?


Careful: -R has a different meaning with portmaster than it does with 
portupgrade.  It does not mean recursive like lowercase -r.


pkg_libchk from sysutils/bsdadminscripts can be used to detect installed 
ports that depend on missing libraries.  From that, it may be possible 
to just give a list of all the ones that are missing pixman to 
portmaster.

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Re: dangerously dedicated physical disks.

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 23 Sep 2013, Robert Simmons wrote:


On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 6:25 AM, Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote:

With GPT, there is no reason to use BSD disklabels at all.


And most modern computers do not have any problem booting it.
The old MBR approach (as well as dedicated) will probably only
be needed in niche applications and exceptions. You can have
all the advantages of being easy stuff known from dedicated
layout by using the GPT tools, plus you gain more compatibility
if this matters.


Not entirely. Due to GEOM specs, if you create a GELI encrypted
container, you cannot use GPT partitioning inside that container. You
must use BSD. This is an edge case, and I've submitted a bug about it
a while ago, but like I just said, this is apparently a feature not a
bug.


It's not GEOM, it's just GPT.  By specification, the backup partition 
table has to be at the end of the disk.  That interferes with anything 
else that wants to put metadata there, like GELI or gmirror.

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Re: dangerously dedicated physical disks.

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 22 Sep 2013, atar wrote:

During the reading of the FreeBSD handbook, I've encountered at the term 
'dangerously dedicated' regarding physical disks and the author of this 
chapter in the FreeBSD handbook didn't think this term need more clarity. so 
for newbies like me in the FreeBSD world I want to ask: what's the 
'dangerously dedicated' term meaning by?


The term refers to a disk partitioned with only the BSD disklabel 
partition table:


  disk ada0
partition a (ada0a, /)
partition b (ada0b, swap)
partition d (ada0d, /var)
partition e (ada0e, /tmp)
partition f (ada0f, /usr)

It's dangerous because that partitioning format is rare outside of 
BSD-based systems.  Disk utilities may not recognize it, and could

damage it.

Most of the rest of the world used MBR partitioning, which allowed up to 
four MBR partitions (called slices by FreeBSD) per disk.


Since four slices is not enough for the standard FreeBSD disk layout, 
with /, swap, /var, /tmp, and /usr, the standard procedure is to use MBR 
partitioning, with the MBR partitions (slices) being sub-partitioned 
by a BSD disklabel.


  disk ada0
MBR slice 1 (ada0s1)
  partition a (ada0s1a, /)
  partition b (ada0s1b, swap)
  partition d (ada0s1d, /var)
  partition e (ada0s1e, /tmp)
  partition f (ada0s1f, /usr)
   MBR slice 2 (ada0s2)
  ...

Yes, one partition format inside another.  It only seems complicated 
because it is.


GPT is the new partitioning format, which makes things much simpler by 
being capable of up to 128 partitions in the standard configuration. 
With GPT, there is no reason to use BSD disklabels at all.


  disk ada0
GPT partition 1 (ada0p1, bootcode)
GPT partition 2 (ada0p2, /)
GPT partition 3 (ada0p3, swap)
GPT partition 4 (ada0p4, /var)
GPT partition 5 (ada0p5, /tmp)
GPT partition 6 (ada0p6, /usr)

Summary: Dangerously dedicated partitioning has no unique advantages. 
Use GPT when possible, use MBR/disklabel when necessary.

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Re: initialize msdosfs on memory stick?

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 12 Sep 2013, Gary Aitken wrote:


I can't seem to find how to do this in the handbook or man pages.
I need to initialize a usb memory stick with an msdos file system.
Is it possible, or do I have to find a windoze system?


Sure, it's possible.  For maximum compatibility, I'd suggest creating an 
MBR layout on it.  Some devices expect that.  Assuming it is da0 (make 
sure) and that everything on it has been backed up...


# gpart destroy -F da0
# gpart create -s mbr da0
# gpart add -t \!12 da0
# newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/da0s1
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Re: initialize msdosfs on memory stick?

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 12 Sep 2013, Gary Aitken wrote:


On 09/12/13 17:52, Warren Block wrote:

On Thu, 12 Sep 2013, Gary Aitken wrote:


I can't seem to find how to do this in the handbook or man pages. I
need to initialize a usb memory stick with an msdos file system. Is
it possible, or do I have to find a windoze system?


Sure, it's possible.  For maximum compatibility, I'd suggest creating
an MBR layout on it.  Some devices expect that.  Assuming it is da0
(make sure) and that everything on it has been backed up...

# gpart destroy -F da0
# gpart create -s mbr da0
# gpart add -t \!12 da0
# newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/da0s1


That worked, thanks.

Where is the magic file type !12 described?
I don't see it as one of the possibilities in man gpart.


It's one of the many MS-DOS FAT variations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_type
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Re: Disk Organization

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 11 Sep 2013, Gmail (tzoi516) wrote:


The FreeBSD Handbook is a great source. Will section 4.5 be updated to reflect 
and amplify on the information in 2.7? I didn't realize 4.5 was MBR specific 
initially. Thanks.


The MBR-specific information in that section and the rest of the 
Handbook needs to be factored out into a disk storage section.  I've 
proposed this:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-doc/2013-July/022326.html

It's a big project, and only a few things have been done so far.
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Re: lpd(8) sending email to the wrong address

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 10 Sep 2013, Olivier Nicole wrote:


My printing system is archaic, based on lpr(8), but it works fine for
centralizing printing from Windows (with Samba), Mac and Linux
clients. Plus it includes a printing quota system, so I am reluctant
to change.


Don't apologize, many people use lpd as an alternative to the hidden
complexity of CUPS.


When a print job is failing, lpr will try to send a warning email to
user@client but that e,ail address does not exist; is there a way to
send email at user@default.domain instead?


Looking at the source (usr.sbin/lpr/lpd/printjob.c), it does not appear 
there is any option.  The sendmail() routine in that file could be 
modified.  Or if you filter outgoing mail at or before the MTA, that 
filter could be changed to look for mail from lpd and adjust the domain.

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Re: What's happening to my asciidoc?

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 5 Sep 2013, Warren Block wrote:


On Thu, 5 Sep 2013, David Demelier wrote:


Hi,

I've been using asciidoc for a while, I've updating it to
asciidoc-8.6.8_1. But now I can't generate any correct documentation.
It does not even add :toc: field.

For instance the following example should generate a HTML with its
popular blue theme :

Test
===
:Author: David
:toc:

= Title

Some data

== Title 2

Some data

For me, it produces a very light HTML file with no table of content
and everything is black, I also notice that it does not append any CSS
code.

Does anyone already have this issue?


It's working for me, I used it last night.


Here is the command I use (generated from a Makefile), broken into 
separate lines:


asciidoc \
  -a data-uri \
  -a icons \
  -a iconsdir=/usr/local/etc/asciidoc/images/icons \
  -d article \
  -a stylesheet=~/docs/stylesheets/wb-html.css \
  -a toc \
  -a revdate=2013-09-05 \
  -a year=2013 \
  -a max-width=80em \
  pxe.txt

That stylesheet is just my changes to the default, which change the link 
visited color from pink to red and add rounded corners to listing 
blocks.

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Re: What's happening to my asciidoc?

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 5 Sep 2013, David Demelier wrote:


Hi,

I've been using asciidoc for a while, I've updating it to
asciidoc-8.6.8_1. But now I can't generate any correct documentation.
It does not even add :toc: field.

For instance the following example should generate a HTML with its
popular blue theme :

Test
===
:Author: David
:toc:

= Title

Some data

== Title 2

Some data

For me, it produces a very light HTML file with no table of content
and everything is black, I also notice that it does not append any CSS
code.

Does anyone already have this issue?


It's working for me, I used it last night.
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Re: The logo at boot (Nakatomi Socrates BSD 9.2)

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 4 Sep 2013, Lowell Gilbert wrote:


Patrick Dung patrick_...@yahoo.com.hk writes:


Do you know what is this logo means, or the story behind it?
I thought the BSD daemon (logo) has been around for many years in the past.


It's a movie reference (Die Hard).

The Beastie logo is still there, in the /boot directory, if you want it.


Or the standard orb, by setting it in /boot/loader.conf: 
loader_logo=orb

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Re: Automatic Network Configuration (DHCP)

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 2 Sep 2013, JC wrote:


Under Section: 29.6.7.2. DHCP Server Installation


There is a error where the file name reads /usr/local/etc/dhcpd.conf.sample.

dhcpd.conf.sample should read dhcpd.conf.example.


Fixed!  In the future, reporting this type of problem with a PR is the 
best way to make sure people are aware of it.


Thanks!
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Re: how to find where a port came from and rebuild with debug symbols

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 24 Aug 2013, ill...@gmail.com wrote:


On 24 August 2013 12:05, Gary Aitken vagab...@blackfoot.net wrote:

If I have a core file that implicates a library:
  #0  0x00080525cab0 in wxWindow::DoSetSize () from 
/usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2u_core-2.8.so.0
and
#16 0x0008056bf720 in wxAuiManager::Update () from 
/usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2u_aui-2.8.so.0

and I want to find out which port these came from so I can rebuild it
with debug symbols, how do I do that?


As to the first look at pkg-which(8):
% pkg which /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2_aui-2.8.so.0
/usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2_aui-2.8.so.0 was installed by package wxgtk2-2.8.12_2
% pkg which -o /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2_aui-2.8.so.0
/usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2_aui-2.8.so.0 was installed by package
x11-toolkits/wxgtk28
(the -q flag makes it all lovely  terse)

As to the second:
I don't know, some ports have an option to build with debug symbols, but if not
you might have to edit some Makefiles, or worse.


Can't you just add WITH_DEBUG=yes to the make command or make.conf?
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Re: hugin?

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2013, Gary Aitken wrote:


Is anyone using the current port of hugin successfully on 9.1?
I've never used it before but an attempt to start it crashes:

$ hugin
/usr/local/share/hugin/data/plugins/top_five.py
  CAT:Control Points
  NAM:keep 5 CPs per image pair
/usr/local/share/hugin/data/plugins/woa.py
  CAT:Control Points
  NAM:Warped Overlap Analysis
/usr/local/share/hugin/data/plugins/shooting_pattern.py
  CAT:initial distribution
  NAM:6-1-1 Shooting Pattern
/usr/local/share/hugin/data/plugins/crop_cp.py
  CAT:Control Points
  NAM:Crop Control Points
Segmentation fault: 11 (core dumped)


That could be from having the OpenGL preview window enabled.  In 
~/.hugin, go to the [GLPreviewFrame] section and set isShown to zero. 
After the program starts, that can be set in the Preferences: 
File/Preferences/Assistant After align open.  Set it to Preview 
Window rather than Fast preview window.

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Re: Setup HP Laserjet 1120m over network with LPD

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2013, Juris Kaminskis wrote:


finally my printer responds with this command:

nc 192.168.1.105 9100  output.xqx


Okay, that's a good start.


but I have no idea how to get it running through the normal LPD spooling
system. output.xqx file I generate first with the foo2xqx-wrapper filter
and it accepts only postscript


That is considered normal for Unix printers.  If you want the complexity 
of a filter that autodetects input type, save adding that for later.



i tried this printcap entry:

HP|lp|Printer:\
:lp=9100@192.168.1.105:\
:sh:\
:mx#0:\
:sd=/var/spool/hp:\
:if=/usr/bin/foo2xqx-wrapper:\
:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:

but in the Status file i have:  waiting for 9100@192.168.1.105 to come up


Do not use IP addresses.  lpd really, really, *really* wants a 
resolvable hostname.  Entering it in /etc/hosts is enough, then use that 
name above.



btw: gsed package was not mentioned as dependency for foo2xqx-wrapper in
the Installation Notes


Depending on where those notes are, that should be mentioned to the 
author of the notes or the port maintainer.

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Re: Setup HP Laserjet 1120m over network with LPD

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2013, Juris Kaminskis wrote:


ok I realised the problem was that i sent plain text to filter instead a
postscript.

when I run now:

lpr test.ps

no error messages appear anymore except that in the /var/spool/hp which is
my spooling directory in the status file I have Sending to 192.168.1.105
and printer is silent


I would get the filter working alone before involving the extra 
complication of lpd.  The documentation at the foo2xqx home page may 
help: http://foo2xqx.rkkda.com/

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Re: copying milllions of small files and millions of dirs

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2013, Mark Felder wrote:


On Fri, Aug 16, 2013, at 1:46, Nicolas KOWALSKI wrote:

On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 11:13:25AM -0700, aurfalien wrote:

Is there a faster way to copy files over NFS?


I would use find+cpio. This handles hard links, permissions, and in case
of later runs, will not copy files if they already exist on the
destination.

# cd /source/dir
# find . | cpio -pvdm /destination/dir



I always found sysutils/cpdup to be faster than rsync.


sysutils/clone may do better as well.
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Re: Setup HP Laserjet 1120m over network with LPD

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 18 Aug 2013, Juris Kaminskis wrote:


Yes indeed, i corrected, but i have still the problem


Please don't top-post, it makes responding more difficult.

lpd will restart a queue when it gets an error from a filter.  Manually 
test the filter before trying to use it with lpd.

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Re: New to Free-BSD with questions.

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 10 Aug 2013, r_oliva...@juno.com wrote:


D.) Is there a site that I can download a complete copy of the documentation 
for Free-BSD, as one file and not a series/set of separate files?


ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ 
has the Handbook in compressed files for download.  Several formats are 
available, including single and split HTML, PDF, and others.  Many 
people just read the online version at 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html


Translated versions are also available.
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Re: 9.2-RC1: Problem with Kernel

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 10 Aug 2013, Walter Hurry wrote:


This is 9.2-RC1 on amd64 (upgraded from 9.2-BETA1 by refetching the
source from releng/9.2 and rebuilding kernel and world).

The kernel compiles and runs fine using the supplied GENERIC, but when I
try to use my custom kenel config file, on reboot I get this:

Mounting from ufs:/dev/ada0p2 failed with error 19

What module(s) have I missed?


options GEOM_PART_GPT

But without information on what you removed, it's only a guess.
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Re: Setup HP Laserjet 1120m over network with LPD

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 6 Aug 2013, Juris Kaminskis wrote:


after several trials and errors and reading through FreeBSD handbook I am
at dead end on how to proceed further, hope someone can guide me.


Are you sure about that model number?  I can't find specs for a Laserjet 
1120M.  There is a Laserjet M1120.  It's a Winprinter.


The file entries are confusing and use some non-base programs.  You may 
be mixing the base system's lpr/lpd with the CUPS versions of the same 
names from ports.


For plain lpr/lpd, I have this article:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/lpdprinting.html
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Re: Setup HP Laserjet 1120m over network with LPD

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 7 Aug 2013, Juris Kaminskis wrote:


2013. gada 6. aug. 23:17 Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com rakst?ja:
  On Tue, 6 Aug 2013, Juris Kaminskis wrote:

after several trials and errors and reading through FreeBSD 
handbook I am
at dead end on how to proceed further, hope someone can guide me.


  Are you sure about that model number?  I can't find specs for a Laserjet 
1120M.  There is a Laserjet M1120.  It's a Winprinter.

  The file entries are confusing and use some non-base programs.  You may 
be mixing the base system's lpr/lpd with the CUPS versions of the same names 
from ports.

  For plain lpr/lpd, I have this article:
  http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/lpdprinting.html



Model number: HP LaserJet M1120n MFP

I try your how-to in few days as it seems I need to redo whole config. I will 
post my results, thanks


The Laserjet M1120 is a winprinter, which means it does not understand 
plain text or common PDLs like PCL or PostScript.  There is 
print/foo2zjs in ports, but it's meant to be used with CUPS.  I have not 
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Re: Update /usr/src with subversion

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 5 Aug 2013, David Noel wrote:


Ok great, thanks Matthew. I tried a different search query and
actually found a similar question on the forums:
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=35014


That is an outdated thread.  Ignore it.


Your solution looks a bit cleaner than the one proposed there: rm -r
/usr/src/.svn, and then check out the new branch.

I'll check out the man for svn switch.


The new form is just 'svn relocate':
http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=224243postcount=5
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Re: Delete a directory, crash the system

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013, Frank Leonhardt wrote:


So it boils down to:

a) Leave is is, as it can detect when the kernel has trashed its vnode table; 
or


b) It's probably caused by expected FS corruption, so handle it gracefully.


It would be good to log a system error message like filesystem may be 
corrupt to give the user some clue other than a seemingly impossible 
error with no explanation.

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Re: FreeBSD slices and the Boot Manager

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013, Polytropon wrote:

On Sat, 27 Jul 2013 19:39:30 +0200 (CEST), Conny Andersson wrote:



A very important question is if sysinstall's option Install the FreeBSD
Boot Manager detects that I have a FreeBSD 8.3 and detect it as slice 2 on
disk 1?


I'm not sure I'm following you correctly. The sysinstall program
is considered obsolete, the new system installer is bsdinstall.


AFAIK, sysinstall is still used in FreeBSD 8.X, and bsdinstall does not 
have a boot manager option anyway.



So it becomes a boot option when I am rebooting? (Maybe the slice
may come up as ad6s2, because AHCI in FreeBSD 8.4 isn't enabled at the time
of the install.)


Sorry, I don't understand this at all.  AHCI should not be involved with 
identifying slices.



That is a _good_ consideration! To make sure things work independently
from boot-time recognition, use labels for the file system and then
mount them by using the labels. Encode the OS version number in the
labels, so it's even easier to deal with them. Use newfs -L on
un-mounted partitions (you can do that from the install media).


For existing filesystems, that would be tunefs -L.  And agreed, 
filesystem labels make relocation much easier.

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Re: FreeBSD slices and the Boot Manager

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013, Polytropon wrote:


On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 08:18:39 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote:

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013, Polytropon wrote:

On Sat, 27 Jul 2013 19:39:30 +0200 (CEST), Conny Andersson wrote:



A very important question is if sysinstall's option Install the FreeBSD
Boot Manager detects that I have a FreeBSD 8.3 and detect it as slice 2 on
disk 1?


I'm not sure I'm following you correctly. The sysinstall program
is considered obsolete, the new system installer is bsdinstall.


AFAIK, sysinstall is still used in FreeBSD 8.X, and bsdinstall does not
have a boot manager option anyway.


Sometimes I'm confusing them, because I usually don't use the
installer and usually use fdisk (if needed), bsdlabel and
newfs. :-)


gpart does a lot more than both fdisk and bsdlabel, and is easier to 
use. :)



So it becomes a boot option when I am rebooting? (Maybe the slice
may come up as ad6s2, because AHCI in FreeBSD 8.4 isn't enabled at the time
of the install.)


Sorry, I don't understand this at all.  AHCI should not be involved with
identifying slices.


Maybe the required device driver is not part of the 8.x
GENERIC kernel? So for example a drive could come up either
as /dev/ada0 or as /dev/ad6, depending on how the recognition
order and PATA / SATA thing is handled by the system and
its BIOS.


Really, it should always be ada, unless someone has built a custom 
kernel that intentionally uses the old form.  That's usually a mistake.

(AHCI is a separate, unrelated thing.)

Labels will work independently from wheather the device will be 
recognized as ATA disk (for example /dev/ad6s1a being the root disk) 
or SATA disk (where /dev/ada6s1 would be the root disk).


Yes.  Labels don't care about the hardware connection.  So they'll 
continue to work when you take a drive out of a machine and put it in a 
USB enclosure, for example.

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Re: FreeBSD slices and the Boot Manager

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013, Conny Andersson wrote:


Hi Warren and Polytropon,

A few minutes ago I booted up from a FreeBSD-8.4-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img 
to experience that it is sysinstall that is used in that release.


Next, I did a 'dummy' custom installation. And, as I supposed sysinstall 
recognized disk ada0 as ad4 and disk ada1 as ad6. Then I aborted sysinstall 
and rebooted in to my FreeBSD 8.3-Release.


Well, AHCI (Serial ATA Advanced Host Controller Interface driver) seems 
involved when identifying disks and slices. But, only on newer computers who 
has this option set to on in the BIOS. Maybe, bsdinstall in FreeBSD 9.0 and 
onwards can make use of AHCI directly.


At some point, the old ad(4) driver was replaced with the new ada(4) 
driver.  To provide backwards compatability, the old ad devices names 
are still available in /dev.  I don't know when FreeBSD 8.X switched to 
the ada(4) driver.


Neither ad nor ada devices require AHCI.  If it is available, it gives a 
small but noticeable speed increase.  Otherwise, it should make no 
difference.


More apropos labels: The latest BIOS version 2.4.0 for Dell T1500 does not 
support UEFI/GPT/GUID. As far as I know, Dell only have the Unified 
Extensible Firmware Interface on its PowerEdge servers.


There is more than one kind of label.  There are filesystem labels 
like we are talking about, there are GPT labels, there are generic 
labels.  The ones being suggested are filesystem labels:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/labels.html

FreeBSD supports GPT without UEFI.  It doesn't matter in this case, 
since you already have MBR.

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Re: [Bulk] FreeBSD upgrade woes (8.3 - 8.4)

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 19 Jul 2013, David Noel wrote:


Perhaps make buildkernel was compiled with -j 1, it's known to create a
buggy kernel. Check your make configuration. Adding a -B, like make -B -j N
buildkernel may work and is fast if -j is set to number or processors, but
it's safer do a make -j 1 buildkernel, same for buildworld.


I replaced the kernel with the one on the 8.4 memstick and it booted
just fine. I then built and installed a kernel without using the j
flag to test Eduardo's theory. It booted without problem. Maybe
there's something to this -j 1 causing buggy kernels rumor.


It's possible.  But again, I've been using -j 1 for years on a variety 
of processors, mostly Intel, without problems.  That's with buildworld 
and kernel (which is buildkernel plus installkernel), but not with 
installworld.


Are you using clang instead of gcc?  That could be very different.
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Re: Bill Paul's network drivers

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 17 Jul 2013, Michel Behr wrote:


Hi

I'm considering learning how to build drivers, so I can make my Lenovo S400
wireless card get detected by FreeBSD.

The Architecture Handbook cites these Bill Paul's network drivers.

9.5 Network Drivers: Drivers for network devices do not use device nodes in
order to be accessed. Their selection is based on other decisions made
inside the kernel and instead of calling open(), use of a network device is
generally introduced by using the system call socket(2).

For more information see ifnet(9), the source of the loopback device, and
Bill Paul's network drivers.

Where can I find those Bill Paul's network drivers?


In the source tree, mostly:
  find /usr/src -path */sys/dev/* -exec grep -l Bill Paul {} \+

Joseph Kong's book FreeBSD Device Drivers will likely be useful, too:
http://nostarch.com/bsddrivers.htm
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Re: to gmirror or to ZFS

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013, aurfalien wrote:

On Jul 16, 2013, at 2:41 AM, Shane Ambler wrote:


I doubt that you would save any ram having the os on a non-zfs drive as
you will already be using zfs chances are that non-zfs drives would only
increase ram usage by adding a second cache. zfs uses it's own cache
system and isn't going to share it's cache with other system managed
drives. I'm not actually certain if the system cache still sits above
zfs cache or not, I think I read it bypasses the traditional drive cache.

For zfs cache you can set the max usage by adjusting vfs.zfs.arc_max
that is a system wide setting and isn't going to increase if you have
two zpools.

Tip: set the arc_max value - by default zfs will use all physical ram
for cache, set it to be sure you have enough ram left for any services
you want running.

Have you considered using one or both SSD drives with zfs? They can be
added as cache or log devices to help performance.
See man zpool under Intent Log and Cache Devices.


This is a very interesting point.

In terms if SSDs for cache, I was planning on using a pair of Samsung Pro 512GB 
SSDs for this purpose (which I haven't bought yet).

But I tire of buying stuff, so I have a pair of 40GB Intel SSDs for use as sys 
disks and several Intel 160GB SSDs lying around that I can combine with the 
existing 256GB SSDs for a cache.

Then use my 36x3TB for the beasty NAS.


Agreed that 256G mirrored SSDs are kind of wasted as system drives.  The 
40G mirror sounds ideal.

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Re: Purpose of /usr/local/lib/compat/pkg?

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013, Walter Hurry wrote:


On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 10:05:19 -0700, Charles Swiger wrote:


Hi--

On Jul 16, 2013, at 9:57 AM, Walter Hurry walterhu...@gmail.com wrote:

What is the purpose of /usr/local/lib/compat/pkg?


It holds old versions of shared libraries which were once used by
installed ports.


As far as I can see, in a properly organised system, all the shared
libraries in there should be redundant.


True, assuming you've recompiled all of your ports to use the latest
versions. However, if you ever have to roll something back, it will
continue to work if these old shared libs are available.


If this is correct, is there an easy way to clear them out, or should I
just rm?


If you're low on space, sure, you can just rm them.  Don't bother
otherwise...


Thanks. No, I'm not desperately low on space; I just like to keep things
tidy.


Install the excellent sysutils/bsdadminscripts and run pkg_libchk to 
check for packages still depending on those libraries or missing ones. 
If it doesn't complain, it's safe to delete them.  Otherwise, rebuild 
everything it complains about first.

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Re: gpart: table 'da0' is corrupt; operation not permitted

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013, aurfalien wrote:



On Jul 16, 2013, at 1:50 PM, Michael Sierchio wrote:


On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 1:44 PM, aurfalien aurfal...@gmail.com wrote:


Upon doing;

gpart destroy da0

I get;

gpart: Device busy


crude but effective:


DISK=da0

offset=`diskinfo $DISK | awk '{ print $4 - 131072 }'`
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/$DISK bs=64k count=1
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/$DISK bs=64k seek=$offset

gpart create -s gpt ${DISK}


This is what I ended up doing.

I unplugged it, waited a few, re plugged and then I was able to delete/destroy.

I will keep your method on hand though as I prefer not doing a hot plug.


Hot plug?  That just wipes the beginning and end of the disk.  I would 
erase 1M just to be sure.


The more elegant version is

  gpart destroy -F da0

If it gives an error when doing that, disabling the safety may be 
necessary:  sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16

Do that only when necessary.  It usually is not.
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Re: to gmirror or to ZFS

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, aurfalien wrote:


... thats the question :)

At any rate, I'm building a rather large 100+TB NAS using ZFS.

However for my OS, should I also ZFS or simply gmirror as I've a dedicated pair 
of 256GB SSD drives for it.  I didn't ask for SSD sys drives, this system just 
came with em.

This is more of a best practices q.


ZFS has data integrity checking, gmirror has low RAM overhead.  gmirror 
is, at present, restricted to MBR partitioning due to metadata conflicts 
with GPT, so 2TB is the maximum size.


Best practices... depends on your use.  gmirror for the system leaves 
more RAM for ZFS.

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Re: [Bulk] FreeBSD upgrade woes (8.3 - 8.4)

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2013, Eduardo Morras wrote:


On Thu, 11 Jul 2013 04:40:38 -0500
David Noel david.i.n...@gmail.com wrote:


I didn't include the make buildworld or make buildkernel for the sake
of brevity but yes, I executed them prior to installworld and
installkernel.


Perhaps make buildkernel was compiled with -j 1, it's known to create a buggy 
kernel. Check your make configuration. Adding a -B, like make -B -j N buildkernel 
may work and is fast if -j is set to number or processors, but it's safer do a 
make -j 1 buildkernel, same for buildworld.


Is this version-specific?  I've been using -j4 or -j8 for years for 
buildworld and kernel (buildkernel + installkernel) on FreeBSD 8 and 9 
with no problems.  Probably on FreeBSD 7 also, but I don't recall.


installworld is a different matter, always do that with a single job.
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Re: Access guard

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 7 Jul 2013, Jos Chrispijn wrote:

I am looking for a program that watches login attempts (mail and ssh login) 
and blocks the ip address after xx failed attempts.
Currently I am using ipfw - might be great if that program works with ipw 
too...


security/sshguard.  There are subports for the three stock firewalls, 
too.

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Re: FreeBSD 9.1 won't boot after install

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 6 Jul 2013, Simon wrote:


On Fri, 5 Jul 2013 19:43:02 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote:


I booted the 9.1 install CD, executed gpart destroy -F ada0, and
installed.  After completing the install, boot fails with:

ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has failed.



That is a BIOS error, probably due to UEFI expecting a certain disk
layout when it finds GPT.



Does this mean GPT is not supported by this system?


Kind of the opposite: UEFI expects GPT, but also expects a particular 
set of partitions.  And then there's the SecureBoot situation.


I thought GPT is supposed to replace MBR and UEFI is the future. 
Perhaps there is something in UEFI that can be tweaked to make it work 
with GPT?


Yes.  There should be some sort of legacy boot.  In UEFI mode, 
SecureBoot can be disabled, so with the correct partition layout FreeBSD 
should boot even in UEFI (untested, I do not yet have a UEFI system).

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Re: FreeBSD 9.1 won't boot after install

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 5 Jul 2013, James E. Pace wrote:


I bought an HP Pavilion p7-1597c [1] system last week.  It is Intel Core
i5-3330, with a Seagate 1.5 TB SATA drive and 12 GB of memory, shipped with
Windows 8.

I have disabled Secure Boot and enabled Legacy device booting.


That says the disk is GPT partitioned for UEFI.


I am able to complete the install of FreeBSD 9.1/amd64 from the CD without
any problems.  However, when I attempt to boot, it doesn't.

Originally I was trying to dual boot with Win 8, but eventually I rendered
Win8 unbootable.  So, now I have given FreeBSD the whole disk.  I have done
the standard install.  I found instructions to have the install use MBR
(instead of GPT), but that also doesn't work.


In what way?


After an install, I get to the boot0 (the F1 boot menu thing) screen, but
when it tries to boot, it prints # and doesn't boot.  When trying to
share the disk with Windows, mostly I'd get boot errors about not having a
bootable device (ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has
failed.).


boot0 is the multi-boot loader.  I'm reasonably sure it will not work on 
a GPT disk.  GPT needs the PMBR loader.  This should be correctable by 
using the Shell option of the install disk:

  # gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0

The installer would write that by default on a blank disk.  I don't know 
what it does when partitions are added to a GPT disk.  For that matter, 
I'm not sure how you got boot0 on there.



In the BIOS setting, I've tried both IDE and AHCI in Storage Options -
SATA emulation.


AHCI is preferred and will go a little bit faster, but either will work.


PC-BSD 9.1 has the same results.  It installs fine, but resets after
selecting something at the boot0 prompt.


boot0 strikes again.  AFAIK, the only option for multi-boot on GPT disks 
is EasyBCD or grub (untested).  But really, a VM is far preferable to 
multi-boot for many situations.



FreeBSD 8.4 wouldn't install because the installer didn't have device node
for /dev/ad4s1b in /dev in order to create the filesystems.


That sounds familiar, but I can't find notes on solving it.  I would 
recommend 9.x anyway.


If there is nothing on the disk to lose, I would start from scratch by 
going to the shell from the installer:

  # gpart destroy -F ada0

Return to the installer, and it should find the entire disk 
unpartitioned.


If you really want to multi-boot, reinstall Windows 8.  Leave part of 
the disk unpartitioned for FreeBSD.  Install EasyBCD in Windows 
(https://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/) and install FreeBSD in a new GPT 
partition, and maybe it will be easy.  I have not tried a multi-boot 
install with Windows 8 or GPT/EFI, so can't really say what it will 
take.  If you do that, take notes and post them somewhere.

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Re: FreeBSD 9.1 won't boot after install

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 5 Jul 2013, James E. Pace wrote:


Thanks for the reply.  I appreciate your trying to help me.

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote:


On Fri, 5 Jul 2013, James E. Pace wrote:


I bought an HP Pavilion p7-1597c [1] system last week.  It is Intel Core
i5-3330, with a Seagate 1.5 TB SATA drive and 12 GB of memory, shipped with
Windows 8.

[...]

I am able to complete the install of FreeBSD 9.1/amd64 from the CD without
any problems.  However, when I attempt to boot, it doesn't.

[...]

After an install, I get to the boot0 (the F1 boot menu thing) screen, but
when it tries to boot, it prints # and doesn't boot.  When trying to
share the disk with Windows, mostly I'd get boot errors about not having a
bootable device (ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has
failed.).



boot0 is the multi-boot loader.  I'm reasonably sure it will not work on a GPT 
disk.  GPT needs the PMBR loader.  This should be correctable by using the 
Shell option of the install disk:
  # gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0

The installer would write that by default on a blank disk.  I don't know what 
it does when partitions are added to a GPT disk.  For that matter, I'm not sure 
how you got boot0 on there.


boot0 must have been installed when I did MBR partitioning, and/or PCBSD did it?


If there is nothing on the disk to lose, I would start from scratch by going to 
the shell from the installer:
  # gpart destroy -F ada0

Return to the installer, and it should find the entire disk unpartitioned.


I booted the 9.1 install CD, executed gpart destroy -F ada0, and
installed.  After completing the install, boot fails with:

ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has failed.


That is a BIOS error, probably due to UEFI expecting a certain disk 
layout when it finds GPT.



I booted the install CD again, and executed:

# gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0

and rebooted.

I got the same error:

ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has failed.


If you really want to multi-boot, reinstall Windows 8.


The Windows ship has sailed -- the system didn't come with media, and
the install has been removed.  So, I'm committed. :)


Always image the disk that comes with the machine.  I like to do that 
before the first boot.  Clonezilla works well for that.  Something to 
remember for next time, anyway.  You may be able to get Windows 
reinstall media from HP.



Do you have any other suggestions?


Use 'gpart destroy' again, and set up an MBR partitioning scheme:
http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=149210postcount=13
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Re: FreeBSD 9.1 won't boot after install

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 5 Jul 2013, James Pace wrote:

You, sir, are a wizard. You magical incantations worked, and I now have a bootable FreeBSD 9.1 system. 
?
? Use 'gpart destroy' again, and set up an MBR partitioning scheme: 
 http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=149210postcount=13 
I really, really appreciate your help.


Excellent!  For future reference, I have an article on disk setup here:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html

Other FreeBSD articles that you may find useful:
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Booting FreeBSD 1.0

[Warren Block]

Yes, 1.0, from November 1993.  The install CD is here:
http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-1.0-RELEASE/

emulators/qemu boots from the floppy image in the cdinstal directory, 
but reports no cdrom found.


I managed to find a Pentium 4 system with a working floppy drive, found 
a working disk, made the boot floppy, and then booted it.  It boots and 
reports the same thing.  Putting the CD drive on a separate IDE bus or 
as a secondary on the same bus as the hard drive makes no difference. 
Chipset too new, maybe.


Any ideas short of find an original Pentium system that still works?

Here is the qemu invocation I tried:

qemu -m 16 -cpu pentium -hda fbsd1.img -fda /mnt/cdinstal/cdins_ah.flp -cdrom 
FreeBSD-1.0-RELEASE.iso -boot a -enable-kqemu
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Re: Booting FreeBSD 1.0

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 27 Jun 2013, Julian H. Stacey wrote:


Warren Block wrote:

Yes, 1.0, from November 1993.  The install CD is here:
http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-1.0-RELEASE/

emulators/qemu boots from the floppy image in the cdinstal directory,
but reports no cdrom found.

I managed to find a Pentium 4 system with a working floppy drive, found
a working disk, made the boot floppy, and then booted it.  It boots and
reports the same thing.  Putting the CD drive on a separate IDE bus or
as a secondary on the same bus as the hard drive makes no difference.
Chipset too new, maybe.

Any ideas short of find an original Pentium system that still works?


I recall FreeBSD CDROM images have had 2 different types of boot
sequences, I think it matched evolving generations of BIOS support.
The change was some years back.  Maybe qemu only supports the newer of the 2
CD boot methods.


On the P4 system, the CD would boot but hang.  None of the other systems 
would boot from the CD, so I think you're right.


Just tried a Celeron 600 system, with the same results.  Whatever 
hardware the IDE/Adaptec floppy is expecting is not quite what it finds. 
The CD light does not even blink when it tries to find the cdrom. 
UDMA disabled, 40-wire IDE cable, manually master/slave or different 
bus, none have made a difference.


On the positive side, the floppy boots reliably.
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Re: Booting FreeBSD 1.0

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 27 Jun 2013, ill...@gmail.com wrote:


On 27 June 2013 11:11, ill...@gmail.com ill...@gmail.com wrote:


On 27 June 2013 10:46, Julian H. Stacey j...@berklix.com wrote:


Warren Block wrote:

Yes, 1.0, from November 1993.  The install CD is here:
http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/FreeBSD-1.0-RELEASE/

emulators/qemu boots from the floppy image in the cdinstal directory,
but reports no cdrom found.

I managed to find a Pentium 4 system with a working floppy drive, found
a working disk, made the boot floppy, and then booted it.  It boots and
reports the same thing.  Putting the CD drive on a separate IDE bus or
as a secondary on the same bus as the hard drive makes no difference.
Chipset too new, maybe.

Any ideas short of find an original Pentium system that still works?


I recall FreeBSD CDROM images have had 2 different types of boot
sequences, I think it matched evolving generations of BIOS support.
The change was some years back.  Maybe qemu only supports the newer of the 2
CD boot methods.



Is there perhaps a way to emulate a SCSI CD drive?
Those tend to work no matter what.



Aha, from install.txt:

| CD-ROM drives:
|  Mitsumi CDROM drive with Mitsumi Controller
|  Most SCSI CD-ROM drives on a supported SCSI controller

So I suppose no IDE.


The cdins_ah.flp image says it supports IDE, but I bet you're right, 
that's only for disks.  qemu can emulate a SCSI CD-ROM, I think.

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Re: Booting FreeBSD 1.0

[Warren Block]

Decided to ignore the CD and just copy the files to a simulated MS-DOS 
drive.  Got to the point of copying distributions, process documented 
here: http://wonkity.com/~wblock/freebsd-1.0/freebsd1.txt


So far, it's giving me a new appreciation for modern installers.

Julian, you are listed in the SUPPORT.TXT file.  Congratulations!
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Re: Hello

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 26 Jun 2013, David Demelier wrote:


2013/6/26 Mike Jeays mike.je...@rogers.com:

On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 08:56:59 +1000
julius juliuscmontes...@gmail.com wrote:


Which BSD for a user desktop ??!.
I all ready have Linux mint but I like to try again, in the past I have
use it but no luck in dual booting system with windows and I have try to
follow youtube BSD users that gave instructions on the BSD and no luck.
Everybody that I watch in youtube for instruction it hasn't work even
loading the BSD on is own hasn't work.So which BSD for a user desktop??!
Thank you


PC-BSD is a good place to start; it makes installation easy.

I prefer running Windows in a VM under VirtualBox to dual-booting. Switching
between the two is much faster, and you can make the host file system visible
to the guest with Samba.


The only drawback of this is performance. Or you have a very powerful
machine :-)


The VM guests run pretty quick, at least if the host CPU has VT-x or 
AMD-V.  Check the BIOS, Intel VT-x is sometimes disabled there.  I have 
not benchmarked but would estimate it to be 80-90% equivalent CPU speed, 
maybe a bit less for disk I/O depending on the virtual disk type.


Windows in a VM also has the benefit of being able to move the VM to a 
different host without having to reinstall the operating system in the 
VM.  But overall, the best feature is that the VM host and guest run at 
the same time.

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Re: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/serialconsole-set up.html

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2013, Mark Felder wrote:


On Tue, Jun 25, 2013, at 11:23, Stephen Burke wrote:

Does anyone know how I could push serial output to an IP port that I
could SSH to?



You want something like a Portmaster or Lantronix device that will
provide serial consoles over SSH

http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/external-device-servers/


Or a small computer like a netbook running sshd with a USB to serial 
adapter and cu(1).


If you had two systems located near each other in a data center, each 
could act as the SSH serial console terminal for the other.

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Re: Boot Loader Issue

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 23 Jun 2013, Doug Hardie wrote:



On 23 June 2013, at 20:39, Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote:


On Sun, 23 Jun 2013, Doug Hardie wrote:


I had to convert a system from GPT to MBR.  All went fine till I tried to 
reboot the system.  It gets to mountroot and dies trying to mount from 
ufs:/dev/ada0p2.  That won't work.


The loader should be getting that information from /etc/fstab.  Have the 
entries there been changed?


That was the problem.  The system used GPT before and I can't believe I forgot 
to update fstab.  That was a really dumb mistake.


Not really, the only reason it occurred to me was because I've forgotten 
to do it many, many times.


As Polytropon points out, labels can help avoid the problem.  In this 
case, it would have had to be a UFS label on the filesystem:


http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/labels.html
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Re: Boot Loader Issue

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 23 Jun 2013, Doug Hardie wrote:

I had to convert a system from GPT to MBR.  All went fine till I tried 
to reboot the system.  It gets to mountroot and dies trying to mount 
from ufs:/dev/ada0p2.  That won't work.


The loader should be getting that information from /etc/fstab.  Have the 
entries there been changed?


If I enter ufs:/dev/ada0s1a then the system boots fine and runs.  I 
need to alter mountroot so it tries the right partition/slice.  How do 
I do that?  I couldn't find anything in the handbook on that.


http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot-blocks.html 
has some information.

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Re: Boot Loader Issue

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 24 Jun 2013, Polytropon wrote:


On Sun, 23 Jun 2013 15:47:53 -0700, Doug Hardie wrote:

I need to alter mountroot so it tries the right partition/slice.
How do I do that?  I couldn't find anything in the handbook on that.


You need to install the GPT boot code, e. g.

# gpart add -t freebsd-boot -l gpboot -b 40 -s 512K ad0
# gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ad0

See http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html for
details.


That is GPT bootcode, but he was switching to MBR.  That is documented 
in the second half of the link.

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Re: Boot Loader Issue

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 23 Jun 2013, Michael Sierchio wrote:


On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote:

On Sun, 23 Jun 2013 15:47:53 -0700, Doug Hardie wrote:

I need to alter mountroot so it tries the right partition/slice.
How do I do that?  I couldn't find anything in the handbook on that.


You need to install the GPT boot code, e. g.

# gpart add -t freebsd-boot -l gpboot -b 40 -s 512K ad0


Why the offset?  Why 512k?


Block 40 is the first 4K-aligned block after the 32 blocks occupied by 
the GPT.  It won't hurt anything if the drive is not a 4K Advanced 
Format drive, won't really make a big difference if it is since 
bootcode is not really disk I/O-limited.  Just good practice to keep 
everything aligned.


512K is the largest size of bootcode that will work.  The loader loads 
the whole partition regardless of how large the bootcode is, and will 
fail with larger sizes.  It's no loss of space because the first UFS 
partition will start at 1M.  Why 1M?  Because it's an unofficial 
standard, and aligned with 4K, 8K, 128K, and so on.


This article talks about it a bit more:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/ssd.html


# gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ad0


I think it's simpler to make an entry in /boot/loader.conf:

vfs.root.mountfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s1a


These are different things.  The command is for a GPT disk, and the boot 
device being set is for MBR.

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Re: FreeBSD slice/partiton setup question

[Warren Block]

There have been some excellent responses, and I just wanted to add a 
quick point:


Virtual machines with VirtualBox work very well and avoid the problem of 
trying to make compatible partition layouts.  Enable sshd on FreeBSD and 
get to the files with rsync or scp or some FUSE module on the other 
computer.


Besides avoiding the whole problem of mixed partition schemes, it means 
both operating systems can run at the same time.  The host computer can 
be used to look up things on the web about setting up the VM guest, 
while the guest is actually running.

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Re: mini express cards supported by freebsd

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 7 Jun 2013, david coder wrote:


i need a mini express wifi card for a thinkpad laptop.  does anybody know of
one that is supported by freebsd?  the aironet card i have is too fat.


Thinkpads have a BIOS blacklist that only allows approved cards to be 
used.  The approved cards likely vary significantly depending on the 
Thinkpad model.  The Lenovo web site has information on which cards are 
available for each model.  Some people patch the BIOS to prevent the 
test and allow other cards.


As far as FreeBSD is concerned, I've had the best experience with 
Atheros cards.  There is a list of cards here:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/dev/ath_hal%284%29/HardwareSupport

There are two sizes for mini PCIE cards, and two or three antenna 
connectors, so it's important to match the existing card.

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Re: trouble setting up wireless

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 9 Jun 2013, Alexander Kapshuk wrote:


On 06/09/13 01:24, Warren Block wrote:
First, check the easy things: is there a physical switch to enable 
wireless?  Is it on?

There is no physical switch to enable wireless there.


Notebooks also have function-key combinations to enable and disable the 
radio.


Please post the output of 'ifconfig -a'. 

root@box0:/root # ifconfig -a
ath0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST metric 0 mtu 2290
   ether 00:24:2c:5e:06:f2
   nd6 options=29PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL
   media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
   status: associated
wlan0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST metric 0 mtu 1500
   ether 00:24:2c:5e:06:f2
   nd6 options=29PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL
   media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
   status: no carrier
   ssid  channel 12 (2467 MHz 11g)
   regdomain 103 indoor ecm authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i privacy OFF
   txpower 20 bmiss 7 scanvalid 450 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250
   roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 5 protmode CTS wme burst roaming MANUAL
   bintval 0


I don't see anything obviously wrong.  Is an access point within range? 
Has someone set it to have a hidden SSID?

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Re: trouble setting up wireless

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 9 Jun 2013, Alexander Kapshuk wrote:


On 06/09/13 01:24, Warren Block wrote:
First, check the easy things: is there a physical switch to enable 
wireless?  Is it on?

There is no physical switch to enable wireless there.


Notebooks also have function-key combinations to enable and disable the 
radio.
I've been able to use wireless on this laptop on FreeBSD 9.0. I just followed 
the instructions in the handbook and that was it. This time round, I seem to 
have done the same thing, but there's probably something I must be doing 
wrong.


There were probably changes between the two, but I have not noticed any 
regressions.


Please post the output of 'ifconfig -a'. 

root@box0:/root # ifconfig -a
ath0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST metric 0 mtu 2290
   ether 00:24:2c:5e:06:f2
   nd6 options=29PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL
   media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
   status: associated
wlan0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST metric 0 mtu 
1500

   ether 00:24:2c:5e:06:f2
   nd6 options=29PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL
   media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
   status: no carrier
   ssid  channel 12 (2467 MHz 11g)
   regdomain 103 indoor ecm authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i privacy OFF
   txpower 20 bmiss 7 scanvalid 450 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 
250

   roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 5 protmode CTS wme burst roaming MANUAL
   bintval 0


I don't see anything obviously wrong.  Is an access point within range? Has 
someone set it to have a hidden SSID?
The reason why ssid is empty in the output of ifconfig above, is because I've 
omitted it in /etc/rc.conf.


That's not what I was suggesting.  Most access points allow the SSID to 
be hidden.  It's not really hidden, this does not greatly increase 
security, but it does make the SSID impossible to see on a scan and 
requires adding scan_ssid=1 to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.



Here's my /etc/rc.conf:

cat /etc/rc.conf
hostname=box0
ifconfig_re0=DHCP
sshd_enable=YES
moused_enable=YES
ntpd_enable=YES
powerd_enable=YES
# Set dumpdev to AUTO to enable crash dumps, NO to disable
dumpdev=AUTO
wlans_ath0=wlan0
ifconfig_wlan0=WPA DHCP
hald_enable=YES
dbus_enable=YES
linux_enable=YES


DHCP is enabled for both wired and wireless, but only one instance can 
be running at once.  Comment out the wired section:

#ifconfig_re0=DHCP

And try again with just the wireless.

If you want both, there is an example using lagg(4) in the Handbook:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-aggregation.html#networking-lagg-wired-and-wireless

But first, get just the wireless working by itself.


Quick question...

The ath_hal(4) man page says that the support for my wireless card is handled 
via ath_hal. It seems to be compiled into the kernel, but I'm not seeing it 
being loaded like the wpa_ and ath_pci modules are.


'kldstat' should show it.
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re: trouble setting up wireless

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 8 Jun 2013, Sasha and Tanya Kapshuk wrote:


Howdy,

Been trying to setup wireless on a laptop with an Atheros 5424/2424 card 
running FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE.


Been following the instructions given in the handbook.

Running 'ifconfig wlan0 up scan' does not seem to return anything. What am I 
doing wrong?


That should be 'ifconfig wlan0 up list scan'.
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Re: trouble setting up wireless

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 8 Jun 2013, Sasha and Tanya Kapshuk wrote:


On 06/08/2013 09:03 PM, Warren Block wrote:



Howdy,

Been trying to setup wireless on a laptop with an Atheros 5424/2424 card 
running FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE.


Been following the instructions given in the handbook.

Running 'ifconfig wlan0 up scan' does not seem to return anything. What am 
I doing wrong?


That should be 'ifconfig wlan0 up list scan'. 

Tried that. Still no output.

I see that my card being identified as AR2425 is supported by the ath_hal(4) 
module. How do I enable it?


Both are built into the GENERIC kernel.  If you've built a custom 
kernel, you'll have to load them in /boot/loader.conf.



Here's whta I've got in my /etc/rc.conf:

if_ath_load=YES
if_ath_pci_load=YES


Right, but those go in /boot/loader.conf.  Not needed if you're using 
the GENERIC kernel, though.



ifconfig says 'no carrier' for wlan0.


Here's my short form wireless article:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/wireless.html
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Re: trouble setting up wireless

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 8 Jun 2013, Sasha and Tanya Kapshuk wrote:


I am running the GENERIC kernel. I can see that the wlan and ath pieces are 
compiled into the kernel, so I removed the ath lines from /boot/loader.conf.


I seem to have done everything right, but it still doesn't work.

'ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0' creates wlan0.

'wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' produces  no output.

dhclient wlan0 says no link  giving up.

What am I doing wrong?


First, check the easy things: is there a physical switch to enable 
wireless?  Is it on?


Please post the output of 'ifconfig -a'.

Until 'ifconfig wlan0 list scan' produces a list of visible access 
points, there's not much reason to run wpa_supplicant or dhclient.

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Re: USB can't mount msdosfs drive

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 5 Jun 2013, Joseph Mays wrote:


Tried several iterations, though it?s clearly a fat32 formatted USB drive. 
Shown  below are the results of fdisk and the mount_msdosfs command.


root@warehouse:/root # fdisk /dev/da2
*** Working on device /dev/da2 ***
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=1897 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=1897 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 12 (0x0c),(DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT (LBA))
   start 8064, size 30473088 (14879 Meg), flag 80 (active)
   beg: cyl 1/ head 0/ sector 1;
   end: cyl 706/ head 115/ sector 52
The data for partition 2 is:
UNUSED
The data for partition 3 is:
UNUSED
The data for partition 4 is:
UNUSED

root@warehouse:/root # mount_msdosfs /dev/da2s1 /usb2
mount_msdosfs: /dev/da2s1: Invalid argument
root@warehouse:/root #


Maybe the large option to mount_msdosfs(8)?

Also, something is odd about the first partition starting at 8064. 
What does 'gpart show da2' say?

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Re: Can sasl/sendmail Report IP Of Failed Access?

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 4 Jun 2013, Tim Daneliuk wrote:


On 06/04/2013 04:51 PM, Doug Hardie wrote:


On 4 June 2013, at 08:47, Tim Daneliuk tun...@tundraware.com wrote:


I am seeing login dictionary attacks on a FreeBSD mail server being
reported.  Is there a way to determine the IPs that are doing this
so they can be blocked at the firewall?   auth.log only
notes the attempted user name, not the IP of origin.
--



I wrote some code to find the appropriate maillog entries which do include 
the IP addresses.  It automagically adds the IP addresses to the pf 
blackhole table if certain criteria is met.  The criteria is changeable. 
If you would like a copy, let me know.




Yes, I'd love a look at that, thanks.


sshguard is supposed to be capable of analyzing log files beyond just 
ssh.

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Re: define more partitions in freebsd

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 3 Jun 2013, saeedeh motlagh wrote:


thanks Carl,

i tried your your manual step by steps on FreeBSD8.2 but error happened.
this is what i've done:
gpart create -s MBR ad3
ad3 created
gpart add -t freebsd ad3
ad3s1 added
gpart create -s BSD -n 20 ad3s1
gpart: geom 'ad3s1': File Exists

if i do not run the second command and run the third one, it says invalid
argument.

i don't know what should i do:( any comments or hints are really
appreciated.


[please stop top-posting, it makes replies more difficult]

The slice entry is still present on the disk, and must be removed and 
recreated:


  gpart delete -i1 ad3
  gpart add -t freebsd ad3

Again, GPT is a better solution unless you have a Thinkpad with a broken 
BIOS.

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Re: define more partitions in freebsd

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 1 Jun 2013, Polytropon wrote:

On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 11:10:32 +0430, s m wrote:


my question is: how can i define more partitions on my freebsd? (for
example, ad3s1a, ..., ad3s1h, ad3s1i, ad3s1j, ...).


You cannot. You need to use the GPT partitioning approach
and repartition your disk. With gpart, you can create more
than 'h' partitions, but the partitions will have different
names, such as ad3s1p1, ad3s1p2, ..., ad3s1p10, ad3s1p11, ...
and so on.


GPT partitioning is a replacement for MBR partitioning, and will
generally look like ad3p1, ad3p2, and so on.  FreeBSD's GPT 
implementation should allow 128 GPT partitions by default, although I 
have not tested that.


Use of gpart to set up a disk is shown here:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html

The FreeBSD 9.x installer, bsdinstall, uses GPT partitioning by default. 
The older sysinstall that is used on FreeBSD 8 does not, and probably 
has no native way to use GPT.  The partitions would have to be set up 
manually from a shell before running the installer, and then manually 
entered in the installer.

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Re: swap partition leads to instability?

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 29 May 2013, Michael Sierchio wrote:

On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 6:17 PM, Adam Vande More amvandem...@gmail.com wrote: 


Normal dynamic wear leveling on a modern SSD will be better than
imposing an FS- backed swap for 4GB partion occupying a small fraction
of total drive space.


And you don't think the presence of TRIM--where the SSD can actually 
know which blocks are no longer in use--is worthwhile?

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Re: slice and partition in FreeBSD 9.1

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 28 May 2013, Polytropon wrote:


See this comparison:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/geom-glabel.html

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/disks-adding.html


There is a little information on the common types here, too:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html#bsdinstall-part-manual


Still you have the choice to use MBR partitioning if this is
a requirement (maybe due to hardware that has problems booting
GPT partitioned media? who knows).


Some BIOS systems think GPT partitions mean the system is running UEFI. 
On those system, MBR is required to boot correctly.  I think this is 
still a problem with the Thinkpad T4xx and T5xx models, possibly others.

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Re: pkg_version says my ports need to be updated?

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 27 May 2013, Ed Flecko wrote:


Since I want to know the correct way (or one of I'm sure many correct
ways) of initially installing the OS and then getting it up to date (and
staying up to date), can you tell me what I did wrong and/or what I might
want to do differently?


A short overview:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/portupgrade.html
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Re: swap partition leads to instability?

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 26 May 2013, Polytropon wrote:


On Sun, 26 May 2013 16:09:06 +0700, Erich Dollansky wrote:

Hi,

On Sun, 26 May 2013 01:58:32 -0700 (PDT)
M. V. bored_to_deat...@yahoo.com wrote:


I have a 24/7 network server/gateway with FreeBSD-8.2 on a SSD drive.
it's partitioned as normal (/ , /tmp, /var , /usr and swap) for a
long time now. But recently I heard from a FreeBSD expert that I
shouldn't have swap partition for my server, and having swap
partition could make my server unstable. this was so strange for me,
and I searched a lot but couldn't find a reason for this claim.


because it is a false claim. I never ever have had any system with
working hard, that gave a problem because of the swap space.


I think the problem here is that he's using a SSD.
As soon as the swap partition is being in heavy use,
which means it receives many writes, this may lead
to the SSD wearing out, decreasing its lifetime.


Another problem with SSDs is that they can have difficulty with wear 
leveling.  This is even worse with swap because there is no way to use 
TRIM to tell the SSD about blocks that have been freed.


The workaround is a swapfile on UFS with TRIM enabled.  It works fine, 
and even better when you update the rc scripts for shutdown.


Here's an article on setup:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/ssd.html

And here is the PR with a patch:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=bin/168544
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Re: swap partition leads to instability?

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 26 May 2013, Adam Vande More wrote:


On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 6:32 PM, Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote:


Another problem with SSDs is that they can have difficulty with wear
leveling.  This is even worse with swap because there is no way to use TRIM
to tell the SSD about blocks that have been freed.


Um, that is wrong.


Which part?  A FreeBSD swap partition has no way to use TRIM, so I 
suggest using a swap file on top of UFS, which does support TRIM.



It is in fact the basically the point of TRIM.
And SSD's typically use the best form of wear leveling and it's
usually advisable to leave a bit of the drive unpartitioned/unused to
ensure the wear leveling works optimally.


Using TRIM should preserve performance better than leaving unused space 
and letting the drive wear leveling algorithm move data around without 
the hint.

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Re: setup journaling for root partition

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 23 May 2013, Torsten Hantzsche wrote:


On Thu, 23 May 2013, s m wrote:



thanks,

i do as you said, but after loading gjournal, dd says operation not
permitted.
gjournal clear says operation not permitted too and therefore gjournal
label is not done and say previous error (gjournal cannot clear metadata
on ad3s1a: operation not permitted). and -v return no extra log.

i don't know why i can not do any thing in fixit mode:(

is this a true procedure? i mean maybe i should do any thing else  because
freebsd handbook set journaling for user partition in single user mode not
in fixit mode. i test it and it works well, but for root partition i can
not do the same because root partition can not be unmount in single user
mode.

any hints or comments are really appreciated.
thanks in advance



Hi,

i remember having similar error messages with glabel some years ago.
The solution was found in man 4 geom in section DIAGNOSTICS:

I had to set kern.geom.debugflags=0x10 to enable the foot shooting mode.

Maybe this could help you too?


For certain values of help. :)

If geom won't let you write to part of a disk, it's because it thinks 
that part of the disk is already in use, usually by a mounted 
filesystem.  Overwriting part of a filesystem is not guaranteed to lose 
data.  But why take the chance?


Better to boot from mfsBSD (http://mfsbsd.vx.sk/).  Possibly better yet 
to use SUJ, which can be enabled with tunefs with the root partition 
mounted read-only in single user mode.  SUJ has its own problems, 
though.

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Re: file corruption solution (soft-update or ZFS)

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 23 May 2013, saeedeh motlagh wrote:


hello every body

i have a question about fixing file corruption in freebsd.

now i have freebsd8.2 and some times file corruption happened on it. this
issue has a heavy cost for me and i want to avoid it or fixit it
completely. so my question is:

is it better to upgrade my freebsd to 9.1 and use soft update or migrate
from UFS to ZFS?


That's a judgement call, which means it depends.


i heard so much about soft update -that is added in freebsd9.1-  which can
fix file corruption in acceptable way with low cost but i don't know how
much is reliable and efficient.


Several things:

Soft updates have been around for quite a while.
Soft updates journaling is the new addition.
Neither of these address file corruption.  Their purpose is to make sure 
the filesystem does not get corrupted, but individual files could still 
contain bad data.



in the other hand, i think migration from UFS to ZFS can be another
solution. as i read ZFS is is created to solve all the problems related
integrity file system. is it reliable enough in comparison soft-update?

now, i want to know which solution is better and why?


Again, it depends.  Does the target system have enough RAM for ZFS?  If 
the file corruption is due to a hardware problem or an application 
writing bad data, no filesystem can prevent that.

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Re: file corruption solution (soft-update or ZFS)

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 23 May 2013, saeedeh motlagh wrote:


you know i have a sensitive server and unfortunately it is located some where 
that power outage happens much. so i want guarantee my data and avoid data lost 
and file corruption in my
server.

i do not have any problem in RAM and hardware.


The lack of a UPS can be considered a hardware problem.


i don't know which approach is more suitable for my server. using soft-update 
or ZFS. please help me to select the best one.


Please don't top-post, as it makes responding to your message more 
difficult.  One thing mentioned earlier is that ZFS wants lots of 
memory.  4G-8G minimum, some might say as much as the server will hold.


But resilient filesystems still can't prevent data corruption.  Fix the 
power problem with a UPS.

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Re: setup journaling for root partition

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 21 May 2013, Arthur Chance wrote:


On 05/21/13 15:46, Michael Sierchio wrote:

AFAIK Softupdates journaling still breaks snapshot functionality - which
makes it unusable for me. I wouldn't assume that the O.P. doesn't want we
he's asking for.


Good point, I'd forgotten that problem as I don't use UFS snapshots. I can 
imagine it would be a killer for some people.


It is, especially if you use dump/restore.
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Re: Hot Swapping SATA drive?

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 14 May 2013, RW wrote:


On Tue, 14 May 2013 07:45:21 -0400
Robert Huff wrote:



Ronald F. Guilmette writes:


 3) Assuming that I want to do this stuff, what BIOS options
 should I be setting or unsetting on the motherboard?


I am unable to check the BIOS settings on that MB (which may
be ASrock as well), but I don't believe I had to do anything other
hand make sure eSATA was enabled.


I don't there there is any difference between SATA and eSATA above the
physical layer. I'm not sure what that setting would do.


At a guess, it could connect one of the internal SATA ports to the eSATA 
connector.

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Re: enter single user mode from boot menu

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 29 Apr 2013, Teske, Devin wrote:


In single user mode, the root filesystem will be the only one mounted, and
it will be mounted read-only.

If you need to make changes (Correcting a fat-fingered edit to /etc/fstab,
for example), you'll need to mount root rw.

mount -u -o rw /


or

mount -u -rw /

(just thought I'd save you 2 keystrokes, nyuk nyuk)


Ooh, a contest.  All I ever use is

  mount -u /
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Re: Procmail Decoding Mime Messages

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 24 Apr 2013, Martin McCormick wrote:


Is there a filter that one can run in procmail in which
base64 encoded data go in and text comes out so one can allow
procmailrc to do its work?

I use bogofilter to filter spam and it does a very good
job after one builds a core of spammishness, but legitimate
messages are often-times filled with base64 sections that look
like garbage to the regular expressions that one puts in
.procmailrc for sorting mail.

When searching for information, I found something called
mimencode which both encodes and decodes these attachments, but
there is no FreeBSD port called mimencode so it occurred to me
that some other application might exist which is in the ports
that does basically the same thing.

Is there anything which will take a raw email message
and spit out linear strings which can be processed like normal
text?


mail/maildrop has a reformime program which may be useful.  maildrop 
itself is like a better and easier to use procmail.

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Re: Power switch not working

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 6 Apr 2013, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:


I'll be attending to those thing, but for now I'd just like to know
why, when I do shutdown -h now and then let the system come down to
the point where it says Press any key to reboot pressing the power
switch at that point no longer causes the system to actually power down.
If fact it does nothing.


Others have talked about the power button, but the other option is to 
use shutdown -p now.

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Re: Youtube Flash Videos broken?

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 6 Apr 2013, Jens Schweikhardt wrote:


I have trouble playing Youtube videos in flash format in Firefox. This
has worked in the past, but for a few weeks now, the flash videos
display as a b/w noise background picture with a message centered To
render this video you need the Adobe Flash Player. Install latest Flash
Player. Has Youtube conspired against me, you, FreeBSD, the world? :-)


We've had a thread about it in the forums, with a couple of workarounds:
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=38627
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Re: Restaging from scratch

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 4 Apr 2013, Polytropon wrote:


On Wed, 3 Apr 2013 17:16:35 -0400, Grant Peel wrote:

If anyone is willing to explain step by step, how to boot, create the
filesystems, and make the disk bootable using 9.1  gpart etc I would
appreciate it!


Obtain a CD or DVD image, or a USB stick image, and create
the media as explained in The FreeBSD Handbook. Booting
should not be harder than inserting the media into the
appropriate slot of the machine. :-)

For initializing disks with gpart I found Warren Block's
article very helpful:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html

There are also sections covering the topic both in The
FreeBSD Handbook and the FAQ, but this article is a
very good concentrate.


Aw shucks; thanks.

For a USB bootable FreeBSD, mfsBSD is more capable than the install 
CD/USB: http://mfsbsd.vx.sk/

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Re: OT: Installing 9.1 without re-partitioning hard drive

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2013, Ralf Mardorf wrote:


On Mon, 2013-03-18 at 09:00 -0600, Warren Block wrote:

On Mon, 18 Mar 2013, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
Standard practice for this list is to Cc the responder and the list,
because people are not required to subscribe to post.


That makes sense and does explain why my last mail came through the
list, while my broken MUA didn't use the address, I used to subscribe to
this list. So a smarter MUA should provide different reply settings for
replying to different lists. I should take a look at the mailman
settings, since at the moment I receive 2 mails in case of Cc'ing, IIRC
this can be disabled.


Mailing list settings may not help, since it's really up to the sender. 
But it's easy to filter out duplicates with maildrop or procmail.

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Re: OT: Installing 9.1 without re-partitioning hard drive

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2013, Ralf Mardorf wrote:


On Sun, 2013-03-17 at 15:37 -0700, leeoliveshackelf...@surewest.net wrote:

Please Cc responses to the mailing list


Actually, I had written that in a reply.


I know that it's tolerated by the FreeBSD lists, but for most mailing
lists nowadays it's common to reply to the list only. Most MUA nowadays
provide an option to automatically reply to the list only. So IMO even
for this list the advice should at least be, _if possible_ reply to the
list only, if you want receive a copy directly, than ask the OP reply
to the list and (carbon copy) me, but don't address it to somebody
else.


Standard practice for this list is to Cc the responder and the list, 
because people are not required to subscribe to post.

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Re: Installing 9.1 without re-partitioning hard drive

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 15 Mar 2013, leeoliveshackelf...@surewest.net wrote:

Good evening, Free BSD enthusiasts.  Thank you to each of the several 
people who have responded to my previous messages.  I have made 
significant progress, but am now flummoxed at the installation of the 
boot loader.  The handbook says to run this command, boot0cfg -B 
ad0.  When I run this command, I get the following error message: 
Unable to get providername for ad0.


This message means there is no disk called ad0.  On FreeBSD 9.x, it is 
likely to be called ada0 instead.


I can't find that command in the Handbook.  Could you please point out 
where it is?

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Re: Using bsdinstall to create MBR

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013, Doug Hardie wrote:

I am trying to use bsdinstall to create a MBR partitioned disk.  I can 
set the partition type to MBR fine.  However, when trying to add in 
slices I can't figure out what to enter for the parameters. 
Everything I have tried gives an error message.  I wanted one for / 
and one for swap.  How do I create the two slices?


http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=149210postcount=13
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Re: FreeBSD 9 and Windows XP

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013, Carl Johnson wrote:


Eduardo Morras emorr...@yahoo.es writes:


On Sat,  9 Mar 2013 12:07:41 -0800 (PST)
leeoliveshackelf...@surewest.net wrote:


Good afternoon, FreeBSD enthusiasts.  Can FreeBSD 9.1 be installed on
a computer on which Windows XP currently resides?  If so, how can
this installation be done?  In particular, is there a way to install
9.1 so that it can be booted from the traditional master boot record?
It is important that, when I am done, I can still boot to Windows
XP, as I must run some applications not available on FreeBSD.  If the
idea I am proposing is not feasible with version 9.1, will it work
with 8.3?  Any comments are appreciated.  If this question has
already been asked many times before, please just let me know where
to look to find the answer.  Thanks.  Newbie502



As an addon to other answers, you can install VirtualBox, create a
minimal hard disk with MBR boot menu that points to the WindowsXP
partition. This way you don't need to restart in WinXP. The same can
be done from WinXP side, a minimal hd with MBR boot menu to startup
the FreeBSD.


It is my understanding that FreeBSD doesn't allow using part of a disk,
but grabs the entire disk.  That means that VirtualBox can't use
partitions on a disk that any other partitions are being used by
anything else, including FreeBSD itself.  Am I wrong about this?  I use
VirtualBox using vdmk for an entire disk, but I have never been able to
share with anything else.


It's very hard to tell what situation is being described here.  If the 
VMDK is a pointer to a whole physical disk, that would probably make the 
disk only usable by one VM.  It should be possible to make the VMDK 
point to just one partition on the disk.  Then other VMs or a physical 
machine could use those other partitions while the FreeBSD VM was 
running.


Booting the same Windows install alternately in a VM and then on real 
hardware may trigger the Genuine Advantage annoyance.

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Re: FreeBSD 9 and Windows XP

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013, Carl Johnson wrote:


Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com writes:


On Mon, 11 Mar 2013, Carl Johnson wrote:


It is my understanding that FreeBSD doesn't allow using part of a disk,
but grabs the entire disk.  That means that VirtualBox can't use
partitions on a disk that any other partitions are being used by
anything else, including FreeBSD itself.  Am I wrong about this?  I use
VirtualBox using vdmk for an entire disk, but I have never been able to
share with anything else.


It's very hard to tell what situation is being described here.  If the
VMDK is a pointer to a whole physical disk, that would probably make
the disk only usable by one VM.  It should be possible to make the
VMDK point to just one partition on the disk.  Then other VMs or a
physical machine could use those other partitions while the FreeBSD VM
was running.


I was thinking of the case where I tried to allow direct access by a
virtual machine to a slice on the same disk that I was running FreeBSD
off of.  I just looked further into that and discovered that it is
possible, but not allowed by geom by default.  It can be done by setting
'sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=0x10'.  I am sure that you are aware of the
dangers, but for anybody else reading this check out the warning in the
geom(4) manpage.  They refer to this option as 'allow foot shooting' for
a reason.


That's kind of what I was saying.  If you can get the VMDK to refer to 
just the one slice/partition that the VM needs, it won't lock the whole 
disk.  For example, ada0s2a rather than ada0s2.  Of course, it would be 
bad to share the same partition between more than one VM or physical 
machine at the same time unless it is mounted read-only by all of them.

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Re: Grepping though a disk

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2013, Polytropon wrote:


The file size of the file I'm searching for is less than 10 kB.
It's a relatively small text file which got some subsequent
additions in the last days, but hasn't been part of the backup
job yet.


There have been some good suggestions.  I would use a large buffer with 
dd, say 1M or more, both for speed and to reduce the chance of hitting 
only part of the search string.


For the future, look at sysutils/rsnapshot.  Easy to set up, 
space-efficient, and provides an easily-accessed file history.

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Re: backups using rsync

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2013, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:


Now, unfortunately, I have just been bitten by the evil... and apparently
widely known (except to me)... ``You can't use dump(8) to dump a journaled
filesystem with soft updates'' bug-a-boo.


Until SUJ has been deemed 100%, I avoid it and suggest others do also. 
It can be disabled on an existing filesystem from single user mode.



If I use all of the following rsync options...  -a,-H,-A, -X, and -S 
when trying to make my backups, and if I do whatever additional fiddling
is necessary to insure that I separately copy over the MBR and boot loader
also to my backup drive, then is there any reason that, in the event of
a sudden meteor shower that takes out my primary disk drive while leaving
my backup drive intact, I can't just unplug my old primary drive, plug in
my (rsync-created) backup drive, reboot and be back in the sadddle again,
almost immediately, and with -zero- problems?


It works.  I use this to slow mirror SSDs to a hard disk, avoiding the 
speed penalty of combining an SSD with a hard disk in RAID1.


Use the latest net/rsync port, and enable the FLAGS option.  I use these 
options, copying each filesystem individually:


-axHAXS --delete --fileflags --force-change

--delete removes files present on the copy that are not on the original. 
Some people may want to leave those.


--exclude= is used on certain filesystems to skip directories that are 
full of easily recreated data that changes often, like /usr/obj.


Yes, the partitions and bootcode must be set up beforehand.  After that, 
it works.  Like any disk redundancy scheme, test it before an emergency.



P.P.S.  Before anyone asks, no I really _do not_ want to just use RAID
as my one and only backup strategy.  RAID is swell if your only problem
is hardware failures.  As far as I know however it will not save your
bacon in the event of a fumble fingers rm -rf * moment.  Only frequent
and routine actual backups can do that.


Yes, RAID is not a backup.  Another suggestion I've been making often: 
use sysutils/rsnapshot to make an accessible history of files.  The 
archive go on another partition on the mirror drive, which likely has 
more space than the original.  rsnapshot uses rsync with hard links to 
make an archive that lets you easily get to old versions of files that 
have changed in the last few hours/days/weeks/months.

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Re: backups using rsync

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2013, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:


So, um, I was reading about this last night, but I was sleepy and my eyes
glazed over... Please remind me, what is the exact procedire for turning
off the journaling?   I boot to single user mode (from a live cd?) and
then what?  Is it tunefs with some special option?


Just boot in single user mode so all the filesystems are unmounted or 
mounted readonly.  Then use 'tunefs -j disable /dev/...'.  It will also 
mention the name of the journal file, which can be deleted.



Use the latest net/rsync port, and enable the FLAGS option.  I use these
options, copying each filesystem individually:

-axHAXS --delete --fileflags --force-change


Hummm... I guess that I have some non-current rsync installed.  In the man
page I have there is no mention of any --force-change option.  What does
it do?


affect user/system immutable files/dirs.  Probably only included in 
the man page when the port is built with the FLAGS option set.


An additional note: the script that runs my rsync backup also modifies 
the mirrored /etc/fstab to use the appropriate labels for the backup 
filesystems.

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Re: connect to a network printer to be able to print

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013, Trond Endrestøl wrote:


The rm (remote machine) property in /etc/printcap should be changed to
10.155.135.3, i.e.

:rm=10.155.135.3:\

Then it's simply a matter of restarting lpd, i.e.
/etc/rc.d/lpd restart

If you're lucky, your first print job should appear as hardcopy.


lpd(8) really wants DNS to be working.  I forget the exact symptoms, but 
using raw IP addresses does not always work.


It's not clear why just adding an entry to /etc/hosts is not possible, 
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Re: connect to a network printer to be able to print

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013, Antonio Olivares wrote:


Dear folks,

I am trying to connect a network printer to be able to print to it.  I
know the make/model of the printer:
HP Color LaserJet CP4520
and the ip address it is on
10.155.135.3

I want to use lpd/lpr to be able to print as is specified in
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/lpdprinting.html

I read the instructions on the handbook, but it does not specify how
to use the ip address or specify it to print to it.  How can I set
this printer up?
I have setup /etc/printcap with the following:

lp:\
   :lp=:\
   :sh:\
   :mx#0:\
   :rm=HP_Color_LaserJet_CP4520:\
   :rp=raw:\
   :sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:\
   :lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:

but there is no ip adress where the communication can exist.  How can
I do this?  Do I setup the printer with CUPS?  or can it be done with
lpr which is what I use with a local HP 1200 printer, but this one is
a network printer.


If your local DNS does not have a name for the printer, define it in 
/etc/hosts:


10.155.135.3HP_Color_LaserJet_CP4520
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