From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 16 22:18:09 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1E621065765 for ; Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:18:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from af.gourmet@videotron.ca) Received: from relais.videotron.ca (relais.videotron.ca [24.201.245.36]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9614A8FC12 for ; Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:18:08 +0000 (UTC) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Received: from [192.168.0.51] ([96.21.103.185]) by VL-MR-MR001.ip.videotron.ca (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.3-8.01 (built Dec 16 2008; 32bit)) with ESMTP id <0KRM00G6NNIL92J0@VL-MR-MR001.ip.videotron.ca> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:54:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-id: <4AD8EB8F.9010900@videotron.ca> Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:54:23 -0400 From: PJ User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" Subject: I hate to bitch but bitch I must X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:18:10 -0000 Why is it that the manual pages, as thorough as they may be, are very, very confusing. Perhaps I am being too wary, but I find that too many instructions/examples are stumbling blocks to appreciation of the whole system: for instance, let's look at the instructions for changing disk labels with glabel or is it tunefs ? man glabel(8): for UFS the file system label is set with tunefs(8) . what happened to glabel? man tunefs(8) The *tunefs* utility cannot be run on an active file system. To change an active file system, it must be downgraded to read-only or unmounted. So, you have to run tunefs from an active file system to modify another disk? but from man tunefs: BUGS This utility should work on active file systems. What in hades does this mean--just above it says cannot be run on active file systems. ??? To change the root file system, the system must be rebooted after the file system is tuned. You can tune a file system, but you cannot tune a fish. How cute... And fish eat bugs. Seriously, now to the manual: To create a permanent label for a UFS2 file system without destroying any data, issue the following command: # tunefs -L /home/ /dev/da3 Oh? home is what? What does this have to do with the partitions? Here's from man glabel(8): EXAMPLES The following example shows how to set up a label for disk ``da2'', cre- ate a file system on it, and mount it: glabel label -v usr /dev/da2 newfs /dev/label/usr mount /dev/label/usr /usr [...] umount /usr glabel stop usr glabel unload The next example shows how to set up a label for a UFS file system: tunefs -L data /dev/da4s1a mount /dev/ufs/data /mnt/data Am I to understand that glabel is only for a new system? What's with the newfs... I'm trying to set labels on an system that is already set up. And, the glabel examle above is not for UFS file systems? Oh, that's for tunefs? So why are we even dealing with this glabel? from manual: # tunefs -L /home/ //dev/da3/ A label should now exist in /dev/ufs which may be added to /etc/fstab: /dev/ufs/home /home ufs rw 2 2 Why? Is this necessary? and somewhere I saw "tunefs -L volume /dev/da0s1a" or something like that. Does that mean that each partition should be tunefsd? Maybe the guys who programmed this stuff understand; I sure don't. I just want to be able to set the labels according to what they say can be done... so shy not have a clear and concise explanation? Do people who write this stuff ever read it? Tell me that its clear and simple and to the point... so far, I have been running back and forth between half a dozen web pages trying to understand what is going on... and doing things through a dense fog does not produce creative results!