Re: fdisk MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition!
On Wed, May 09, 2018 at 12:33:40PM +, Rudolf Sykora wrote: > > So please describe more in detail what kind of backuping you want. > > I just want to regularly rsync /home to the "backup" partition > with some history (along the lines of > > https://netfuture.ch/2013/08/simple-versioned-timemachine-like-backup-using-rsync/ > ). > > This partition (or part of it) will later also be backed up to some > other machine. > > The partition will be mounted read-only most of the time; only for > back-up it will remounted. So far a regular OpenBSD disklabel partition with OpenBSD filesystem fits the bill. > > I would prefer that the backup partition be readable / mountable from > other machines. That's why I tried a separate MBR partition rather > than an OpenBSD disklabel one. And there it got peculiar. What "other machines". What OS:es. What filesystem? How do you envision a separete MBR partition will help you with this? > > Ruda -- / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
Re: fdisk MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition!
> Think of the fdisk partition as a way to mark off a part of the disk for > OpenBSD. It should generally be one contiguous block. The beginning of > *the* OpenBSD partition holds the disklabel, which is the important part > for marking off OpenBSD disk (sub?)partitions. I think it would it be helpful to say that in the "Each entry has a type. ... This can be edited using disklabel(8)." paragraph of fdisk(8). Rodney
Re: fdisk MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition!
> So please describe more in detail what kind of backuping you want. I just want to regularly rsync /home to the "backup" partition with some history (along the lines of https://netfuture.ch/2013/08/simple-versioned-timemachine-like-backup-using-rsync/ ). This partition (or part of it) will later also be backed up to some other machine. The partition will be mounted read-only most of the time; only for back-up it will remounted. I would prefer that the backup partition be readable / mountable from other machines. That's why I tried a separate MBR partition rather than an OpenBSD disklabel one. Ruda
Re: fdisk MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition!
On 05/09/18 05:06, Rudolf Sykora wrote: > Hello misc, > > I wanted to use a MBR partition for backup purposes, > so I (almost) created (using fdisk) another OpenBSD MBR (A6) > partiotion, but then I got the message > > MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition! > Write MBR anyway? [n] > > So am I doing it wrong? yep. In addition to "same disk backups"? [insert template rant here] ... Think of the fdisk partition as a way to mark off a part of the disk for OpenBSD. It should generally be one contiguous block. The beginning of *the* OpenBSD partition holds the disklabel, which is the important part for marking off OpenBSD disk (sub?)partitions. When you think about that, the reason for ONE OpenBSD partition starts becoming more clear. IF possible, just enlarge your existing OpenBSD partition to include the new disk space. disklabel, done. If not ... just make the fdisk partition something else, and create an OpenBSD partition in that space using disklabel, format it as normal. And don't ever us an OS on the machine of the type of the fdisk partition you picked. :) Nick.
Re: fdisk MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition!
On Wed, May 09, 2018 at 09:06:24AM +, Rudolf Sykora wrote: > Hello misc, > > I wanted to use a MBR partition for backup purposes, > so I (almost) created (using fdisk) another OpenBSD MBR (A6) > partiotion, but then I got the message > > MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition! > Write MBR anyway? [n] > > So am I doing it wrong? Well. Yes. The BSD's has got a disk label of their own, and OpenBSD has got it's disklabel inside the MBR:s OpenBSD partition, when MBR is used. So there is supposed to be only one OpenBSD partition containing the BSD disklabel describing the OpenBSD view of the disk's partitioning. If you have more than one it might work, if all parts of the system selects to use the same OpenBSD MBR partition, and only warns about the second. But only that one MBR partition, with its BSD disklabel, will be used. I have heard of variants where you set one MBR partition at the time to A6 and the other to something else, which it messy. And it is not intended to operate that way. You could use one OpenBSD MBR partition and in the BSD disklabel allocate a big partition of type RAID. Then use that partition in softraid as RAID 0 or CONCAT - they might allow using a single chunk. Or as CRYPTO with a dummy encryption key. On the new softraid disk you create an MBR OpenBSD partition and so on... See softraid(4), bioctl(8) and https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#softraid Whether that is a good suggestions depends very much on what kind of backup you have in mind. There are probably many other more BSD:ish ways to do it than you think. So please describe more in detail what kind of backuping you want. > > Thanks for comments! > > Ruda -- / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
fdisk MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition!
Hello misc, I wanted to use a MBR partition for backup purposes, so I (almost) created (using fdisk) another OpenBSD MBR (A6) partiotion, but then I got the message MBR contains more than one OpenBSD partition! Write MBR anyway? [n] So am I doing it wrong? Thanks for comments! Ruda