From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mon Sep 7 15:41:02 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 505FA9CBC02 for ; Mon, 7 Sep 2015 15:41:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wam@hiwaay.net) Received: from fly.hiwaay.net (fly.hiwaay.net [216.180.54.1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 1D133164A for ; Mon, 7 Sep 2015 15:41:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wam@hiwaay.net) Received: from kabini1.local (dynamic-216-186-222-143.knology.net [216.186.222.143] (may be forged)) (authenticated bits=0) by fly.hiwaay.net (8.13.8/8.13.8/fly) with ESMTP id t87Fexao016079 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Mon, 7 Sep 2015 10:41:00 -0500 To: FreeBSD Questions !!!! From: "William A. Mahaffey III" Subject: FreeBSD 9.3R installation question(s) Message-ID: <55EDB00B.6090400@hiwaay.net> Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2015 10:46:29 -0453.75 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.2.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.20 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2015 15:41:02 -0000 I will be bringing 2 new boxen online in the next few days/weeks. Both were originally intended to run CentOS6 (I even have kickstart files prepped & ready to go), however in view of recent success using VirtualBox (& in stark contrast to *serious* issues w/ same last year this time) & desire to reduce the .... aaaah .... dirversity of boxen on my LAN, I decided to use FreeBSD 9.3R on both. Both are AMD A-series APU based, 1 w/ 8 HDD's, to become my dev-box, the other w/ 2 HDD's to be used as a home-theatre box w/ MythTV. I would like to optimize usage of disk space as much as possible on both boxen, so I am planning to partition the drives, then RAID the partitions, RAID1 for root, RAID0 for others, notably /home, where the preponderance of data will reside on both boxen. Both setups are similar, but slightly more complex than this box, also 9.3R, w/ 4 HDD's, but root on a plain UFS partition, /usr on a 3-partition RAID0 (striped), & /home on a 4-partition RAID0. I am planning on RAID1 (mirrored) root drive for both boxen, both probably created from 16 GB partitions of 2.5" 1 TB HDD's, w/ 16 GB swap partitions, & /home getting the rest (*very* similar to how the drives on this box are setup). I had a fair amount of noob-ish issus w/ the setup of this boxen almost exactly a year ago, as was dramatically chronicled onlist. I eventually got everything going, w/ very good, patient, & necessary onlist help. Hoping to avert as much drama this time around as possible, I am planning to script the installs, to both reduce fat-fingered errors & to allow accurate documentation of the proceedings in case onlist help is needed. I have created 2 scripts for the MythTV box, culled from an online source which I downloaded last year, but can't recall immediately (I'll dredge it up if needed, but I *think* it was good, although slightly different from my setup). Both are designed to be called from appropriate points in the install process. I attach them below & have a couple of questions. The 'setup...' one is to be run before/during the partitioning process, & the other at the end, as indicated in comments. The online handbook indicates that bootcode can be installed on the mirrored root RAID after creation, & before newfs calls. Does this apply for both MBR & FreeBSD boot code ? The manual illustrates using MBR code, but the gpart man-page seems to imply either should work, comments please. Also, that script mounts both newly-created RAID partitions (root & /home) under /mnt before returning to the installer, is that proper ? In the 'finish...' script, the fstab file is written to '/tmp/bsd_install_etc', is that correct, or should it be written to the mounted newly-created root drive (or both) ? TIA & have a nice labor day. -- William A. Mahaffey III ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "The M1 Garand is without doubt the finest implement of war ever devised by man." -- Gen. George S. Patton Jr.