Re: OpenBSD - FreeBSD migration
The results of my investigation so far are below: Filesystem stuff: - it appears that FreeBSD and OpenBSD use the same partition table format. Is this true? If so, I can potentially avoid rebuilding an entire disk if I am right that ... - FreeBSD can mount and read OpenBSD's version of the 4.2 BSD filesystem implementation Although I strongly suspect that the filesystem itself is probably the same, it is not possible to read an OpenBSD mounted partition, as far as I can tell. After booting using FreeBSD, fdisk correctly reports the information regarding the slice set up by OpenBSD (default 4, not 1, the FreeBSD default), however bsdlabel under FreeBSD cannot interpret any of the data found at the location reported in the table read by fdisk. I do find this somewhat surprising, as it is the same structures that are being recorded. Perhaps there is a magic number issue here that causes bsdlabel to believe that it can't interpret the data as the message returned is that there is no label present in the indicated slice. This makes the filesystem question moot, as without access to the BSD partition results there is no clue as to where to begin access of the filesystem. - even if the above isn't true, it appears that the format used by dump/restore is consistent. I have tried dumping/restoring some small filesystems to test this, but if this is an unsupported way to go, I would like to know now. This seems to work. I was successfully able to dump filesystems under OpenBSD and then restore them under FreeBSD, with general success (albeit a complaint that the dump header is out of date). Cheers, Andrew. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OpenBSD - FreeBSD migration
Andrew Wright wrote: Hi All; I want to migrate a system from OpenBSD 4.2 (ie; the current version) to FreeBSD (7.0). I have poked around on the archives a little to determine how best to do this, and I want to make sure that my understanding (summarized below) is indeed correct. If I am asking these questions on the wrong list (potentially likely for the AMD specific questions) then please let me know: Filesystem stuff: - it appears that FreeBSD and OpenBSD use the same partition table format. Is this true? If so, I can potentially avoid rebuilding an entire disk if I am right that ... No, I don't think that's true. In any case, you can verify it by booting a live-CD of FreeBSD and trying it. If both of these are true, I can simply install FreeBSD over top of the OpenBSD /, /var and /usr partitions, and then be able to mount the old /home. Is this something people do? If you delete everything from all directories except /home, it might work. Otherwise, the risk of getting mixed binaries, libraries and scripts from both systems is too great. Processor stuff: - The machine of interest has an AMD64 processor. I have seen several references to running Linux emulation on an AMD processor, but I would like to confirm that this is true while running the 64-bit version of the OS. In other words: - with a 64-bit installation (amd64) of FreeBSD 7.0, emulation of 32-bit Linux binaries (notably Matlab, but possibly other software as well) is possible, and indeed a reasonably well-known way of proceeding. I think 32-bit Linux binaries should be supported on 64-bit FreeBSD alongside 32-bit FreeBSD binaries. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: OpenBSD - FreeBSD migration
Ivan Voras wrote: Andrew Wright wrote: If both of these are true, I can simply install FreeBSD over top of the OpenBSD /, /var and /usr partitions, and then be able to mount the old /home. Is this something people do? If you delete everything from all directories except /home, it might work. Otherwise, the risk of getting mixed binaries, libraries and scripts from both systems is too great. I probably should have been more clear in my initial post -- I am certainly intending on relabelling + reformatting partitions for /, /usr, /var, /tmp and so on -- to try to run these with a potential filesystem incompatbility (not to mention the potential of mixed binaries) is just asking for trouble. What I am hoping to do is run dump | restore, as the various userdata partitions are all on separate drives (in a partitions), and I have enough space to dump the first one and compress it onto another user-space drive, and similar jiggery-pokery (Doing this will save _many_ media swaps, and thus much time). Essentially, I am asking whether _readonly_ access works, for which I will need FreeBSD to read the disklabel and the filesystem. Thought I'd clear that up in case a perusal through the archives steered anyone wrong later one. Thanks to everyone who pointed out the live CD, I think that will let me answer most, if not all, of my questions. Andrew. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OpenBSD - FreeBSD migration
Hi All; I want to migrate a system from OpenBSD 4.2 (ie; the current version) to FreeBSD (7.0). I have poked around on the archives a little to determine how best to do this, and I want to make sure that my understanding (summarized below) is indeed correct. If I am asking these questions on the wrong list (potentially likely for the AMD specific questions) then please let me know: Filesystem stuff: - it appears that FreeBSD and OpenBSD use the same partition table format. Is this true? If so, I can potentially avoid rebuilding an entire disk if I am right that ... - FreeBSD can mount and read OpenBSD's version of the 4.2 BSD filesystem implementation If both of these are true, I can simply install FreeBSD over top of the OpenBSD /, /var and /usr partitions, and then be able to mount the old /home. Is this something people do? - even if the above isn't true, it appears that the format used by dump/restore is consistent. I have tried dumping/restoring some small filesystems to test this, but if this is an unsupported way to go, I would like to know now. Also, before someone (quite rightly) says back up your data, I will note that the reason that I would like to be able to read from /home is to avoid a lengthy restore -- all this data is backed up, but if there is no reason to re-label the drive and reformat the various user data partitions (on various drives) and then spend a day running restore, then I would like avoid such a waste of time. If this is even slightly likely to cause problems though, please let me know and I will start swapping media. - if I have somehow misled myself that restore(8) is consistent, please let me know -- re-installing the old OS just to back up to some other format would be a giant waste of time. Processor stuff: - The machine of interest has an AMD64 processor. I have seen several references to running Linux emulation on an AMD processor, but I would like to confirm that this is true while running the 64-bit version of the OS. In other words: - with a 64-bit installation (amd64) of FreeBSD 7.0, emulation of 32-bit Linux binaries (notably Matlab, but possibly other software as well) is possible, and indeed a reasonably well-known way of proceeding. If I'm crazy, and/or misreading the docs, please let me know. Thanks, Andrew. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OpenBSD - FreeBSD migration
On Sun 2008-04-20 15:59:14 UTC-0400, Andrew Wright ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: - it appears that FreeBSD and OpenBSD use the same partition table format. Is this true? If so, I can potentially avoid rebuilding an entire disk if I am right that ... - FreeBSD can mount and read OpenBSD's version of the 4.2 BSD filesystem implementation My understanding is that the second ISO image of FreeBSD (eg. 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso) is a Live CD. That should enable you to boot FreeBSD from CD and attempt to mount the file system (read-only or read-write) that your OpenBSD installation lives on. If both of these are true, I can simply install FreeBSD over top of the OpenBSD /, /var and /usr partitions, and then be able to mount the old /home. Is this something people do? I think prior to the FreeBSD install you would want to erase all files in /, /var and /usr to remove any cruft that would be otherwise left over from the previous OpenBSD installation. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I would be wary of file system reliability between two OSes, especially on a production system. On the other hand maybe there is someone reading this who is successfully dual booting FreeBSD and OpenBSD and sharing /home that may want to comment further. Failing that, you could do some testing on a spare PC or in a VM. I can't comment on the dump/restore or Linux compatibility. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
