From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 11 21:07:18 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CA07E738 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 2014 21:07:18 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org (mwlucas-2-pt.tunnel.tserv9.chi1.ipv6.he.net [IPv6:2001:470:1f10:b9c::2]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 754C4269D for ; Fri, 11 Jul 2014 21:07:18 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org (8.14.9/8.14.9) with ESMTP id s6BL6xr4002287; Fri, 11 Jul 2014 17:07:10 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mwlucas@bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org (8.14.9/8.14.7/Submit) id s6BL6x8D002286; Fri, 11 Jul 2014 17:06:59 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mwlucas) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 17:06:58 -0400 From: "Michael W. Lucas" To: Warren Block Subject: Re: gpart and bsdlabel Message-ID: <20140711210658.GA2269@bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org> References: <20140711201114.GA2064@bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.4.3 (bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org [127.0.0.1]); Fri, 11 Jul 2014 17:07:10 -0400 (EDT) Cc: questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 21:07:18 -0000 On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 03:02:45PM -0600, Warren Block wrote: > On Fri, 11 Jul 2014, Michael W. Lucas wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I'm gradually switching from the familiar and comfortable agony of > > fdisk/disklabel to gpart. > > > > In the past, our org has avoided certain partition letters on specific > > drives. If the drive isn't a boot drive, it has no 'a" partition. If > > it has no swap, it has no 'b' partition. > > > > gpart assigns partition letters in the order in which they're created. > > > > Is there a way to specify which partition letter you want to create, > > or start with, or something? > > Interesting question. I always figured the letters were dynamic. If > they are static, maybe -l could be used to assign them to BSD > partitions. Once upon a time, many many years ago, I assigned da4s1b as a database partition. This was a non-boot drive, and we didn't need more swap space. Everything went fine until the machine misbehaved while I was out of town. A junior sysadmin "fixed" the "broken" "swap" partition. The machine now had lots of virtual memory, but the database files were nowhere to be found. I wish this wasn't a true story. ==ml -- Michael W. Lucas - mwlucas@michaelwlucas.com, Twitter @mwlauthor http://www.MichaelWLucas.com/, http://blather.MichaelWLucas.com/