From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 1 11:42:20 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90B6137B401 for ; Tue, 1 Apr 2003 11:42:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.comcast.net (smtp-out.comcast.net [24.153.64.116]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1143643F85 for ; Tue, 1 Apr 2003 11:42:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jshamlet@comcast.net) Received: from whitetower (bgp01561290bgs.gambrl01.md.comcast.net [68.50.33.221]) by mtaout08.icomcast.net (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.14 (built Mar 18 2003)) with ESMTP id <0HCO00IK1JW0HN@mtaout08.icomcast.net> for questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 01 Apr 2003 14:38:24 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 14:38:23 -0500 (EST) From: "J. Seth Henry" In-reply-to: <44adfbdwnb.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> X-X-Sender: jshamlet@whitetower.gambrl01.md.comcast.net To: Lowell Gilbert Message-id: <20030401134625.E3405-100000@whitetower.gambrl01.md.comcast.net> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: /dev on a read-only filesystem? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 19:42:20 -0000 I'll have to give this a try. Right now, I am just remounting / read-only after boot as part of my /usr/local/etc/rc.d scripts. I'd prefer to eliminate all writes, though. I suppose this means I'm going to have to repartition the microdrive again. /usr keeps getting smaller and smaller. Thanks for the help, Seth Henry On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, Lowell Gilbert wrote: > "J. Seth Henry" writes: > > > The trick is, if I make / read-only, I run into problems with /dev. During > > boot, I get numerous error messages - and things don't seem to work quite > > right. Is there a way to mount / read-only, while maintaining a working > > /dev? Can /dev be mounted from another filesystem - or, preferably (since > > the OS is already running) be linked to, say, /usr/dev? > > I think you still need the devices on the root filesystem, even if you > later mount something else over the directory. That's because there's > a chicken and egg problem -- they need to be there for the other > filesystems to be mounted in the first place. So the symlink approach > won't work, but mounting it on top of /dev from elsewhere would work. > > I believe the typical approach on diskless machines is to put it into > an mfs, but you'd have to doublecheck the documentation on it. > > You could also use devfs, of course, but I'm not sure, offhand, how > well that worked before 5.x. > >