Re: altroot weekly.local
Stuart Henderson writes: > I would prefer to use almost anything else though and get versioned > backups. Probably my most used backup/restore action is to get back a > version of some file from yesterday so something that will only write > the changes is useful. I quite like borg for this but there are many > options. I use a slightly modified version of the script here to have a 7-day versioned backup of important files. https://lika.be/wp/2011/06/incremental-backup-script-with-daily-delta/ You can find it in various other sites, original credit seems to be tri...@linuxcare.com I've tried duplicity and one or two other more sophisticated backup tools. I like this because it uses only one very standard utility, rsync, and I find it easy to reason about and (importantly) easy to restore from. Allan
Re: altroot weekly.local
On 2021-06-22, Andrew Robertson wrote: > Is there any problem with putting ROOTBACKUP=1 in my weekly.local > instead of daily.local? I'm backing up to an SD card and it's maybe not > fast enough to back up in 24 hours, plus weekly backup would be fine. It won't do anything in weekly.local; the weekly script doesn't handle ROOTBACKUP. You could use a shell conditional in daily.local instead: [ $(date +%a) == Sun ] && ROOTBACKUP=1 I advise against using ROOTBACKUP here though. It just dd's the filesystem. If the run is taking a long time, there's a high chance that your backup will not be consistent, both due to the filesystem changing during a backup, and due to overwriting the old backup with the new one. I would prefer to use almost anything else though and get versioned backups. Probably my most used backup/restore action is to get back a version of some file from yesterday so something that will only write the changes is useful. I quite like borg for this but there are many options.
Re: /altroot problem
Andreas Gerdd wrote: Hi. I try to have a root backup with /altroot. I did everything related to the man pages. But i wonder why my /altroot partition is still empty. fstab file: /dev/wd0a / ffs rw,softdep 1 1 /dev/wd0d /altroot ffs xx 0 0 Both / and /altroot partitions are having the same size, I also added ROOTBACKUP=1 to /etc/daily.local, Daily.out file: Backing up root=/dev/rwd0a to /dev/rwd0d: 33129+1 records in 33129+1 records out 271393792 bytes transferred in 13.288 secs (20423240 bytes/sec) ** /dev/rwd0d How are you verifying that the /altroot PARTITION is empty? Nick.
Re: /altroot problem
ls /altroot shows nothing inside, other than ./ and ../ On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 17:51, Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Andreas Gerdd wrote: Hi. I try to have a root backup with /altroot. I did everything related to the man pages. But i wonder why my /altroot partition is still empty. fstab file: /dev/wd0a / ffs rw,softdep 1 1 /dev/wd0d /altroot ffs xx 0 0 Both / and /altroot partitions are having the same size, I also added ROOTBACKUP=1 to /etc/daily.local, Daily.out file: Backing up root=/dev/rwd0a to /dev/rwd0d: 33129+1 records in 33129+1 records out 271393792 bytes transferred in 13.288 secs (20423240 bytes/sec) ** /dev/rwd0d How are you verifying that the /altroot PARTITION is empty? Nick.
Re: /altroot problem
Andreas Gerdd wrote on Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 06:01:07PM +0300: On Sun, Mar 28, 2010, Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net wrote: Andreas Gerdd wrote: I try to have a root backup with /altroot. I did everything related to the man pages. But i wonder why my /altroot partition is still empty. fstab file: /dev/wd0a / ffs rw,softdep 1 1 /dev/wd0d /altroot ffs xx 0 0 Both / and /altroot partitions are having the same size, I also added ROOTBACKUP=1 to /etc/daily.local, Daily.out file: Backing up root=/dev/rwd0a to /dev/rwd0d: 33129+1 records in 33129+1 records out 271393792 bytes transferred in 13.288 secs (20423240 bytes/sec) ** /dev/rwd0d How are you verifying that the /altroot PARTITION is empty? ls /altroot shows nothing inside, other than ./ and ../ What does $ df /altroot tell you, in particular, which mount point is it reporting? Mounted on / or Mounted on /altroot? I'm asking because xx in fstab(5) means ignore totally, so /altroot will not be mounted by default, so ls(1) can't show the contents. By the way, this is useful behaviour. If you are regularly dd(1)ing into a partition, you do *not* want it to be mounted. Yours, Ingo
Re: /altroot problem
What does $ df /altroot tell you, in particular, which mount point is it reporting? Mounted on / or Mounted on /altroot? df /altroot shows: Mounted on / (df -h doesn't show /altroot.) So i cannot browse the content of /altroot, even though the backup files are there?
Re: /altroot problem
Andreas Gerdd wrote: What does $ df /altroot tell you, in particular, which mount point is it reporting? Mounted on / or Mounted on /altroot? df /altroot shows: Mounted on / (df -h doesn't show /altroot.) So i cannot browse the content of /altroot, even though the backup files are there? if your altroot slice is not mounted, /altroot is just some empty dir, as expected. if you want to see what is on there, you have to mount it first, like any other filesystem. mount it, have a look and don't forget to unmount it again. this is best done, when you are sure, that daily will not run while you have it mounted.
Re: /altroot problem
What does $ df /altroot tell you, in particular, which mount point is it reporting? Mounted on / or Mounted on /altroot? df /altroot shows: Mounted on / (df -h doesn't show /altroot.) Thus, /altroot is currently not mounted. So i cannot browse the content of /altroot, even though the backup files are there? We are slowly drifting off-topic, this is no more OpenBSD-specific, instead this is basic knowledge of basic Unix features. No, you cannot access a file system that is not mounted. You need to mount it first, see mount(8) for details. In case you just want to have a look, consider mounting it read-only. And don't forget to umount(8) it afterwards, or the next nightly dd(1) won't do what you expect.
Re: /altroot problem
On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 6:03 PM, Ingo Schwarze schwa...@usta.de wrote: df /altroot shows: Mounted on / (df -h doesn't show /altroot.) Thus, /altroot is currently not mounted. As you said before, it shouldn't be usually mounted as it is used by dd(1). daily.out's output on the first email shows that this partition stores a backup of /dev/wd0a right now. To look into it mount this partition on any mount point. For example: # mount /dev/wd0d /mnt # ls -al /mnt It should have a copy of your root partition, and you should be able to see it after mounting /dev/wd0d. Do not miss umount(8)ing it after looking into its contents (i.e., umount /mnt). So i cannot browse the content of /altroot, even though the backup files are there? We are slowly drifting off-topic, this is no more OpenBSD-specific, instead this is basic knowledge of basic Unix features. No, you cannot access a file system that is not mounted. You need to mount it first, see mount(8) for details. In case you just want to have a look, consider mounting it read-only. And don't forget to umount(8) it afterwards, or the next nightly dd(1) won't do what you expect. Agreed.
Re: /altroot
On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 12:54 AM, Philip Guentherguent...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 3:44 PM, 46254625...@gmail.com wrote: Is it correct string for /etc/fstab? /dev/wd2d /altroot ffs xx 0 0 Assuming /dev/wd2d is the correct partition, yes. (You're looking at the daily(8) manpage, right?) same device i am using here (a for root, b for swap, c entire disk, d for /altroot, and so on...) just two advices: (1) the /altroot filesystem must have the same size as the root (a) one (it may be slightly larger on architectures where root does not start at the beginning of the disk, like i386); (2) as Philip suggests you must read daily(8) to know how enabling back up of the root filesystem. my personal choice is setting ROOTBACKUP to 1 by hand and then run /etc/daily, this way /altroot will survive in case a mistake in the root filesystem remains unnoticed for more than twenty four hours. Should df display the /altroot? Only if you mount it yourself. It is not normally mounted and therefore does not appear in 'df' output. (No point in displaying it, what with it being a duplicate of the root filesystem) indeed, filesystems with xx as mount option are never mounted on boot. it is a backup filesystem -- automatically mounting it is a bad idea. cheers, igor.
Re: /altroot
On Sat, 15 Aug 2009, Philip Guenther wrote: Is it correct string for /etc/fstab? /dev/wd2d /altroot ffs xx 0 0 Assuming /dev/wd2d is the correct partition, yes. (You're looking at the daily(8) manpage, right?) Sure. Original mount string for '/altroot' there was '/dev/wd2d /altroot ffs rw,nodev,nosuid 1 2'. Should df display the /altroot? Only if you mount it yourself. It is not normally mounted and therefore does not appear in 'df' output. (No point in displaying it, what with it being a duplicate of the root filesystem) Ok. Thanks. I do not see any messages about backup. How do I check if backup really happen? -- 4625
Re: /altroot
On Sun, 16 Aug 2009, Igor Sobrado wrote: Is it correct string for /etc/fstab? /dev/wd2d /altroot ffs xx 0 0 same device i am using here (a for root, b for swap, c entire disk, d for /altroot, and so on...) just two advices: (1) the /altroot filesystem must have the same size He have. Filesystem SizeUsed Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/wd2a 223M 58.3M153M28%/ /dev/wd2d 223M 58.3M153M28%/altroot Wow, now I'm sure - backup happens here. But silencely... as the root (a) one (it may be slightly larger on architectures where root does not start at the beginning of the disk, like i386); (2) as Philip suggests you must read daily(8) to know how enabling back up of the root filesystem. my personal choice is setting ROOTBACKUP to 1 by hand and then run /etc/daily, this way /altroot will survive in case a mistake in the root filesystem remains unnoticed for more than twenty four hours. Should df display the /altroot? Only if you mount it yourself. It is not normally mounted and therefore does not appear in 'df' output. (No point in displaying it, what with it being a duplicate of the root filesystem) indeed, filesystems with xx as mount option are never mounted on boot. it is a backup filesystem -- automatically mounting it is a bad idea. -- 4625
Re: /altroot
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 09:44:43PM +, 4625 spoke thusly: On Sat, 15 Aug 2009, Philip Guenther wrote: Is it correct string for /etc/fstab? /dev/wd2d /altroot ffs xx 0 0 Assuming /dev/wd2d is the correct partition, yes. (You're looking at the daily(8) manpage, right?) Sure. Original mount string for '/altroot' there was '/dev/wd2d /altroot ffs rw,nodev,nosuid 1 2'. Should df display the /altroot? Only if you mount it yourself. It is not normally mounted and therefore does not appear in 'df' output. (No point in displaying it, what with it being a duplicate of the root filesystem) Ok. Thanks. I do not see any messages about backup. How do I check if backup really happen? -- 4625 It's in daily output mailed to root's account. You got to have access to root's mail. I've got myself in the wheel group and have root's email sent to me instead. Here's some pertinent stuff in root's crontab: ROOTBACKUP=1# backup / to /altroot MAILTO=dennyboy # forward root's mail to me In /etc/mail/aliases, my name is added next to root: root: dennyboy In daily output to root, the section of the message pertaining to the backup should look something similar to this: Backing up root filesystem: copying /dev/rwd0a to /dev/rwd1a 131098+1 records in 131098+1 records out 1073955328 bytes transferred in 51.680 secs (20780520 bytes/sec) Naturally the 2nd line is dependent on your disk setup, fstab so forth as previously discussed in this thread. Denny White - -- === () ASCII ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments === GnuPG key : 0x1644E79A | http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net Fingerprint: D0A9 AD44 1F10 E09E 0E67 EC25 CB44 F2E5 1644 E79A === iEYEARECAAYFAkqIh3AACgkQy0Ty5RZE55rNAACgn6nB3rWPk5A9Pdl6c3wloMHh 4iMAn26SIqS+5lFH3d3VrBFlDYAxSXQk =HLK7 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: /altroot
On Sun, 16 Aug 2009, Denny White wrote: Sure. Original mount string for '/altroot' there was '/dev/wd2d /altroot ffs rw,nodev,nosuid 1 2'. I do not see any messages about backup. How do I check if backup really happen? In daily output to root, the section of the message pertaining to the backup should look something similar to this: Backing up root filesystem: 131098+1 records in 131098+1 records out I see now. So, everything is fine! -- 4625
Re: /altroot
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 3:44 PM, 46254625...@gmail.com wrote: Is it correct string for /etc/fstab? /dev/wd2d /altroot ffs xx 0 0 Assuming /dev/wd2d is the correct partition, yes. (You're looking at the daily(8) manpage, right?) Should df display the /altroot? Only if you mount it yourself. It is not normally mounted and therefore does not appear in 'df' output. (No point in displaying it, what with it being a duplicate of the root filesystem) Philip Guenther
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Hi! On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 05:17:35PM +0100, Antoine Jacoutot wrote: On Wed, 7 Nov 2007, Nick Holland wrote: Really. /altroot is useful for certain things, but ONLY certain things. Don't call it a backup, as it isn't rotated. You have I do backup everything. It's just that altroot is so easy to get a file you erased by mistake. rm /etc/myfile... err fuck... mount /altroot cp blah... well you see ;) It is good for my lazyness but I'm definitaly not using this for backup ;) rsnapshot (or similar programs) to a separate dir/fs from cron does the same, and can keep several generations in a relatively efficient way, w/o filesystem consistency problems. Kind regards, Hannah.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Jan Stary wrote: ... See at bottom; looks much simpler now, hmm :-) I leave the RAID analogy to someone else. Anyway, first diff, screwed up, I'd prefer the term, learning experience. thanks for all the comments. Jan Index: faq4.html === RCS file: /cvs/www/faq/faq4.html,v retrieving revision 1.254 diff -u -p -r1.254 faq4.html --- faq4.html 3 Nov 2007 13:51:09 - 1.254 +++ faq4.html 7 Nov 2007 07:31:13 - @@ -1915,6 +1915,13 @@ Some additional thoughts on partitioning can use a href=faq10.html#Quotasquotas/a to restrict the space they use, and if they fill the partition, no other parts of your system will be impacted. + liIf you have a second disk, you might want to create an tt/altroot/tt + partition on it, as described in + a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=dailyamp;sektion=8;daily(8)/a. + This can be used for daily backups of your tt//tt partition, + giving you a possibility to recover should your 'a' partition go away. + Obviously, the tt/altroot/tt partition needs to be at least as big + as tt//tt. /ul and what I just committed: Index: faq4.html === RCS file: /cvs/www/faq/faq4.html,v retrieving revision 1.254 diff -u -r1.254 faq4.html --- faq4.html 3 Nov 2007 13:51:09 - 1.254 +++ faq4.html 7 Nov 2007 12:01:01 - @@ -1915,6 +1915,20 @@ can use a href=faq10.html#Quotasquotas/a to restrict the space they use, and if they fill the partition, no other parts of your system will be impacted. + liIf you have a second disk, you might want to create an tt/altroot/tt + partition on it, as described in + a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=dailyamp;sektion=8;daily(8)/a. + This can be used for daily backups of your tt//tt partition, + giving you a possibility to recover should your 'a' partition go away. + Obviously, the tt/altroot/tt partition needs to be at least as big + as tt//tt. + If you have something else duplicating the rest of your disk, either + software + a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=raidamp;sektion=4;raid(4)/a + or a periodic copy using + a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=dumpamp;sektion=8;dump(8)/a + /a href=http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=restoreamp;sektion=8;restore(8)/a, + this disk can be bootable after the removal of the primary disk. /ul
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
* Nick [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007-11-07 04:22]: (add to that that Thunderbird is a brain-dead piece of shit when it comes to handling diffs in general and classic diffs even more so. Apparently, either Thunderbird devs aren't programmers or they never show their diffs to each other.) or they don't use thunderbird :) -- Henning Brauer, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] BS Web Services, http://bsws.de Full-Service ISP - Secure Hosting, Mail and DNS Services Dedicated Servers, Rootservers, Application Hosting - Hamburg Amsterdam
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ
On Sep 25 10:11:04, Joel Knight wrote: --- Quoting Jan Stary on 2007/09/25 at 15:48 +0200: Hi all, afterboot(8) mentions /altroot, which is a nice feature. But you only learn about /altroot when you read afterboot(8). By that time, you already have a system installed, in particular your disk is already partitioned, and typically you don't have the spare partition (of size at least that of /) to use for /altroot. So my suggestion is: /altroot should be mentioned in the install faq, probably in the 'setting up disks' paragraph: http://openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#Disks Can you write something up and submit the diff to faq@ ? I am just about to do it now (just waited for 4.2 to come out). In an attempt to stay close to the current partitioning example, I intend to make a 10G win installation on a 80G disk and start from there. Does this make sense? The current example uses a 20G disk with 1.5G occupied by a pre-existing win partition; I think the above numbers are more realistic nowadays (also, I don't have a 20G disk around :-) Jan
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ
On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 11:54:45AM +0100, Jan Stary wrote: On Sep 25 10:11:04, Joel Knight wrote: --- Quoting Jan Stary on 2007/09/25 at 15:48 +0200: afterboot(8) mentions /altroot, which is a nice feature. But you only learn about /altroot when you read afterboot(8). By that time, you already have a system installed, in particular your disk is already partitioned, and typically you don't have the spare partition (of size at least that of /) to use for /altroot. So my suggestion is: /altroot should be mentioned in the install faq, probably in the 'setting up disks' paragraph: http://openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#Disks Can you write something up and submit the diff to faq@ ? I am just about to do it now (just waited for 4.2 to come out). In an attempt to stay close to the current partitioning example, I intend to make a 10G win installation on a 80G disk and start from there. Does this make sense? The current example uses a 20G disk with 1.5G occupied by a pre-existing win partition; I think the above numbers are more realistic nowadays (also, I don't have a 20G disk around :-) While you're at it: the install docs cover the absolute minimum to run a basic system (I think they describe it as a basic home system connected to the internet). Could you include an example of the same thing but the minimum to be able to compile patches? OpenBSD runs on old hardware. Old hardware doesn't have 20 GB disks. At best, I may have a PII with an 8 GB drive with perhaps a second 1 GB drive. Doug.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ
On Tue, 6 Nov 2007, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: While you're at it: the install docs cover the absolute minimum to run a basic system (I think they describe it as a basic home system connected to the internet). Could you include an example of the same thing but the minimum to be able to compile patches? Include the compXX file set during installation. Install src.tar.gz after installation. That's it. (Add xenocara and ports if you like.) Then you have a basic system connected to the internet and set up for development and maintenance by AnonCVS of the source tree, or for applying autonomous patches. I will not relate the misery getting to this point on a certain unnamed Linux distro, whose release tag rhymes with large. OpenBSD runs on old hardware. Old hardware doesn't have 20 GB disks. At best, I may have a PII with an 8 GB drive with perhaps a second 1 GB drive. Indeed. Here is a df from a bare, fresh 4.2 system, all install sets including X, ports.tgz, and a (very) few smaller packages: (this is an i386 system, other architectures will have different sizes, but should be close). [EMAIL PROTECTED] root 0:1]# df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/sd0a 510168 5731242734812%/ mfs:31119 506407 3481084 0%/tmp /dev/sd0d 6190742 2123778 375742836%/usr of the 2123778K in /usr, 1127960K is under /usr/src (including xenocara source). Total about 2.25GB, not counting swap. Another 2 GB might be needed to compile a complete system in one go. (make release). Clever use of NFS could be made. (Mount /usr/src from NFS, have /usr/obj local, for example). You only need one /usr/src tree per LAN, and it need not be on an OpenBSD host, just one capable of serving NFS. An 8 GB disk would be quite ample, as has been my experience in the past, and as you can conclude from the df output. If you wish to compile only patches (say openssl is patched, and you wish to recompile only openssl's subtree of /usr/src), then a 4GB disk would suffice, including a half G or whatever for swap. OpenBSD doesn't really eat disk until you start building lots of packages from source, i.e. through the /usr/ports infrastructure. Dave
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Hi all, this is a diff to faq4.html (the install faq) so that it mentions /altroot for the installing user before he partitions his drive. Now, the altroot feature is described in daily(8), which you only read when you already have a system installed, your disk is already partitioned, and typically you don't have the spare partition (of size at least that of /) to use for /altroot. The current partitioning example uses a 20G disk with a pre-existing 1.5G windows partition. In the diff I use a 80G disk with a pre-existing 6G windows partition. I believe these are more realistic numbers nowadays (also, I don't have a 20G disk around :-). The 6G figure is used to stay below 8G, which INSTALL.i386 mentions as possible BIOS limit. I suppose the current example uses a 1.5G win partition to stay below 2G (which might be a BIOS limit on even older hardware) - is it so? Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but 20G disks don't really exist anymore. Also, some disklabel messages and the output of disklabel's 'p' command have changed (either that, or the current faq which shows sizes in sectors as an output of 'p m' is mistaken). Jan PS: As this is a small diff, I edited (my copy of) faq4.html manually; but if I was to write up something bigger - is there some script(1)-like log of the whole installation, or can I create one? Drop into shell at the very beginning, and run 'install' inside script(1), or pipe it through tee, neither of which exists in bsd.rd? Or do something just before halt-and-reboot? Thanks. Index: faq4.html === RCS file: /cvs/www/faq/faq4.html,v retrieving revision 1.254 diff -r1.254 faq4.html 773c773 Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors] --- Disk: wd0 geometry: 9729/255/63 [156301488 Sectors] 778c778 *0: 0B0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 3069297 ] Win95 FAT-32 --- *0: 0B0 1 1 - 764 254 63 [ 63:12289662 ] Win95 FAT-32 829c829 Our drive here has a 1.5G partition for Windows 2000 (using the FAT --- Our drive here has a 6G partition for Windows 2000 (using the FAT 831c831 that the Windows partition occupies through cylinder 202 on the drive. --- that the Windows partition occupies through cylinder 764 on the drive. 833,835c833,835 at cylinder 203. You could also calculate OpenBSD's starting sector of 3069360 by adding the existing partition's starting sector (63) and its size (3069297). --- at cylinder 765. You could also calculate OpenBSD's starting sector of 12289662 by adding the existing partition's starting sector (63) and its size (12289662). 854,855c854,855 BIOS Starting cylinder [0 - 2585]: [0] b203/b BIOS Starting head [0 - 239]: [0] biEnter/i/b --- BIOS Starting cylinder [0 - 9728]: [0] b765/b BIOS Starting head [0 - 254]: [0] biEnter/i/b 857,858c857,858 BIOS Ending cylinder [0 - 2585]: [0] b2585/b BIOS Ending head [0 - 239]: [0] b239/b --- BIOS Ending cylinder [0 - 9728]: [0] b9728/b BIOS Ending head [0 - 254]: [0] b254/b 861c861 Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors] --- Disk: wd0 geometry: 9729/255/63 [156301488 Sectors] 864c864 #: idC H S -C H S [ start: size ] --- #: idC H S -C H S [ start:size ] 866,867c866,867 *0: 0B0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 3069297 ] Win95 FAT-32 1: A6 203 0 1 - 2585 239 63 [ 3069360:36030960 ] OpenBSD --- *0: 0B0 1 1 - 764 254 63 [ 63:12289662 ] Win95 FAT-32 1: A6 765 0 1 - 9728 254 63 [12289725: 144006660 ] OpenBSD 871c871 Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [19092 Megabytes] --- Disk: wd0 geometry: 9729/255/63 [76319 Megabytes] 874c874 #: idC H S -C H S [ start: size ] --- #: idC H S -C H S [ start: size ] 876,879c876,879 *0: 0B0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63:1499M] Win95 FAT-32 1: A6 203 0 1 - 2585 239 63 [ 3069360: 17593M] OpenBSD 2: 000 0 0 -0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused 3: 000 0 0 -0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused --- *0: 0B0 1 1 - 764 254 63 [ 63: 6001M] Win95 FAT-32 1: A6 765 0 1 - 9728 254 63 [12289725: 70316M] OpenBSD 2: 000 0 0 -0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused 3: 000 0 0 -0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused 912c912 Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors] --- Disk: wd0 geometry: 9729/255/63 [156301488 Sectors] 915c915 #: idC H S -C H S [ start: size ] --- #: idC H S -C H S [ start:size ] 917,918c917,918 0: 0B0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63:
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On 06/11/2007, Jan Stary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but 20G disks don't really exist anymore. shouting O RLY? /shouting I always thought my 20 Gig HDD was the largest of my eight drives. Are you saying it's Schroedinger's hard drive? What about the others? My 200 MB would like to have a little word with you, and it doesn't look like it's particularly amused. Also, let's remember that old computers NEVER end up in the so-called developing world. People there would NEVER use old computers, right? Let them buy new ones! Oh, and let them eat cake, too.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On 06/11/2007, Jan Stary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: PS: As this is a small diff, I edited (my copy of) faq4.html manually; but if I was to write up something bigger - is there some script(1)-like log of the whole installation, or can I create one? Drop into shell at the very beginning, and run 'install' inside script(1), or pipe it through tee, neither of which exists in bsd.rd? Or do something just before halt-and-reboot? Thanks. I would try to use a serial console, but that's just me.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
snip 20G disks don't really exist anymore. shouting O RLY? /shouting I always thought my 20 Gig HDD was the largest of my eight drives. Are you saying it's Schroedinger's hard drive? What about the others? My 200 MB would like to have a little word with you, and it doesn't look like it's particularly amused. H /me thinks time has arrived to get my old Apple ][c from the locker and start an Apple2BSD Project... Let's see what can be done with 128kb of RAM, 8-bit 6502 processor and no HDD. Also, let's remember that old computers NEVER end up in the so-called developing world. People there would NEVER use old computers, right? /me lives in the so-called developing world. Never knew anyone who have bought an old computer from the so called 1st world and set up a desktop machine or even a production server... People here who are crazy enough to install OpenBSD on a very, very old computer are more perfectly able to do this talk... Otherwise, they would have upgraded their Win9X to WinXP by financing a new system. Let them buy new ones! Oh, and let them eat cake, too. That's great!!! I love cakes!
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 08:11:55PM +0100, ropers wrote: On 06/11/2007, Jan Stary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but 20G disks don't really exist anymore. shouting O RLY? /shouting I always thought my 20 Gig HDD was the largest of my eight drives. Are you saying it's Schroedinger's hard drive? What about the others? My 200 MB would like to have a little word with you, and it doesn't look like it's particularly amused. I have a 171 MB drive. My older computers don't have USB or CD to boot from, so I keep this as sort of a plug-in LiveIDE. The only OS I found that could fit on it is Debian Woody. I haven't tried tweaking NetBSD to fit. Jest Perhaps there needs to be a new fork: OldBSD: Unix for the Ages. It actually wouldn't have to be a total fork, just OpenBSD Release with stuff removed. No sound, no wireless, ISA and basic PCI, IDE (no SATA if it takes more room), OK for USB. Just the basics for boxes that are getting hard to fit the regular OS on. /Jest Doug.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On Tue, 6 Nov 2007 18:26:04 -0500, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: Jest Perhaps there needs to be a new fork: OldBSD: Unix for the Ages. s/Ages/Aged/ ?? Given that I joined IBM in 1962, I am allowed to make such jokes. ~|^ = From the land down under: Australia. Do we look umop apisdn from up over?
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Jan Stary wrote: Hi all, this is a diff to faq4.html (the install faq) so that it mentions /altroot for the installing user before he partitions his drive. Now, the altroot feature is described in daily(8), which you only read when you already have a system installed, your disk is already partitioned, and typically you don't have the spare partition (of size at least that of /) to use for /altroot. what benefit do you see in having /altroot on the same disk as / ? The current partitioning example uses a 20G disk with a pre-existing 1.5G windows partition. In the diff I use a 80G disk with a pre-existing 6G windows partition. I believe these are more realistic numbers nowadays (also, I don't have a 20G disk around :-). The 6G figure is used to stay below 8G, which INSTALL.i386 mentions as possible BIOS limit. I suppose the current example uses a 1.5G win partition to stay below 2G (which might be a BIOS limit on even older hardware) - is it so? eh, kinda. The bigger reason was I wanted most of the disk for OpenBSD, and only wanted the 1.5G as a token Windows partition for the sake of example. You see, at the time I wrote this and committed this disk and this computer to OpenBSD, it was a pretty cool system. PII-450, 20G disk, physically tiny machine, relatively low power consumption. Highly desirable. Still, for all that space, the idea of wasting any of it on a Windows partition that would never be used was completely uninteresting. Yes, five years after the machine was devoted to OpenBSD (and in fact, this article in the FAQ), it's pretty unexciting, I'll grant you. Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but 20G disks don't really exist anymore. Bullshit. No functional 10G drive that passes past me hits a trash can. No functional 4G narrow SCSI drive that passes me hits a trash can either. (1G drives are starting to get a bit nervous around here, however) There are a lot of people who do their first installs (which is what the FAQ is pointed at) on very minimal hardware. 20G is actually much bigger than many people still use, and loads bigger than many non-i386/ amd64 systems usually have on them. So, no, the 80g change is just showing off. No way. At least, not until someone floods me with 80G, 120G, 250G and bigger drives enough that I think everyone must have big disks. :) Also, some disklabel messages and the output of disklabel's 'p' command have changed (either that, or the current faq which shows sizes in sectors as an output of 'p m' is mistaken). Jan PS: As this is a small diff, I edited (my copy of) faq4.html manually; but if I was to write up something bigger - is there some script(1)-like log of the whole installation, or can I create one? Drop into shell at the very beginning, and run 'install' inside script(1), or pipe it through tee, neither of which exists in bsd.rd? Or do something just before halt-and-reboot? Thanks. I do the install for faq4.html every release with a serial cable attached, and tip(1) running inside script(1). argh. I don't suppose you noticed that OpenBSD developers only use diff -u, right? Or actually looked at the output to see why? (add to that that Thunderbird is a brain-dead piece of shit when it comes to handling diffs in general and classic diffs even more so. Apparently, either Thunderbird devs aren't programmers or they never show their diffs to each other.) Anyway... * your diff makes gratuitous and pointless changes. * Those changes will be a pain in the butt for me to maintain, as I don't have your machine. * It doesn't say a word about the point of the diff (/altroot), just silently adds a partition to the install without explanation. * It puts the /altroot partition in a nearly pointless place. * 40G home? Only if I had a deliberate plan for why I needed that much. Of the dozens of machines I have around here, the only one that has a /home that big is my NFS server... I may sound overly critical, but let me say in no uncertain terms: you had an idea, you implemented it. That puts you *above* 95% of the rest of the people who help around here. So for that I commend you. So, while my response may not be overly positive sounding, it is worth my time, I think, to tell you in some detail why. So, take it as constructive criticism (or constructive no way :) An /altroot discussion in the FAQ would be appropriate, but it would not be handled anything like this. It wouldn't be a change to the install example, it would be in section 4.7, and possibly in a RAID discussion somewhere in faq14.html. /altroot is very cool, but like RAID, it does what it does, not what people dream of it doing. I don't think it is in any way an automatic thing that all users should be doing. I suspect you are thinking it will help you if you blow out your 'a' partition. However, the boot system won't
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 01:23:55PM +1100, RW wrote: On Tue, 6 Nov 2007 18:26:04 -0500, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: Jest Perhaps there needs to be a new fork: OldBSD: Unix for the Ages. s/Ages/Aged/ ?? Given that I joined IBM in 1962, I am allowed to make such jokes. ~|^ = Ha! When I was -4. -- I figure that assuming memory isn't too great a concern, the GENERIC kernel is fine. OldBSD would then just be a custom install set that consisted of the minium base ones minus stuff. The normal installer and everything would work. Being that there would be no coding involved, there shouldn't be any security reprecusions. Doug.
