From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Mar 19 08:15:37 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA14864 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 08:15:37 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ns1.yes.no (ns1.yes.no [195.119.24.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA14838 for ; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 08:15:27 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from eivind@bitbox.follo.net) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by ns1.yes.no (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA00414; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:15:25 GMT Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA07594; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 17:15:25 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <19980319171525.25110@follo.net> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 17:15:25 +0100 From: Eivind Eklund To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/release/sysinstall disks.c References: <19980319165439.56949@follo.net> <22018.890323055@time.cdrom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.89.1i In-Reply-To: <22018.890323055@time.cdrom.com>; from Jordan K. Hubbard on Thu, Mar 19, 1998 at 07:57:35AM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, Mar 19, 1998 at 07:57:35AM -0800, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > 1. Install a disk using dangerously dedicated mode. > > 2. Reboot. > > 3. Select custom install. > > 4. 'fdisk' the disk, doing nothing. > > 5. Watch sysinstall come up with a full-screen request with 3 choices > > - IIRC, "Install booteasy", "Install standard MBR", and "Do nothing > > to my bootblock". The default choice is either a standard MBR or > > booteasy; I forget which. If you don't change the default, your > > disk is toast on 'Commit'. > > Erm... But that's exactly what I'd expect to have happen? Give the poor users a break! They just select a disk, go through everything selecting the defaults (which work, until the install is complete). Then they reboot, and nothing work - their disklabel is hosed. This isn't even close to satisfying POLA. > > > I've been caught by this myself, and I've seen quite a few people > > being caught by it since. You need to be alert and have a good > > understanding of the FreeBSD disk-layout to not get caught. > > Well, yes.. But I'm not sure that this one's fixable using methods > that wouldn't in themselves be worse than the problem. Uhm? As far as I can tell, this just requires not writing the bootblock if a disk is dangerously dedicated. This is information that should be easily available from libdisk - unfortunately, I couldn't find an easy way to get it. Is there some interaction here that I'm overlooking? Eivind. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message