From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jul 22 6:54:27 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from nef.ens.fr (nef.ens.fr [129.199.96.32]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C26237B7C9 for ; Sat, 22 Jul 2000 06:54:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from madore@clipper.ens.fr) Received: from clipper.ens.fr (clipper-gw.ens.fr [129.199.1.22]) by nef.ens.fr (8.10.1/1.01.28121999) with ESMTP id e6MDsKT24902 for ; Sat, 22 Jul 2000 15:54:20 +0200 (CEST) Received: from (madore@localhost) by clipper.ens.fr (8.9.2/jb-1.1) Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2000 15:54:20 +0200 From: David Madore To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Setting the root filesystem permanently Message-ID: <20000722155420.A405@clipper.ens.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hi. I just installed 4.0-RELEASE on an i486 (33MHz, 16MB RAM, 1GB disk) system (in case that matters, I installed by copying the distribution CD on a Linux box on the local network and using that as an FTP server). Something seems to have gone awry in the the determination of the root filesystem, because when the kernel boots, it uses "wd0s1a" as root filesystem, whereas the fstab specifies "/dev/ad0s1a"; so the init scripts can't remount root read-write, and, well, they sort of panic (they give me a root shell). I can solve this by passing the -a argument to the kernel: [dmesg excerpt] ad0: 1221MB [2482/16/63] at ata0-master using BIOSPIO Manual root filesystem specification: : Mount using filesystem eg. ufs:/dev/da0s1a ? List valid disk boot devices Abort manual input mountroot> ufs:/dev/ad0s1a But it seems I have to to that interactively. Only this is not acceptable for me, because this box must be able to reboot without human interaction (ultimately, it should have no screen) beyond perhaps pressing a reset button from time to time. So, how do I specify the root device once and for all? Incidentally, why this change from wd* to ad*? The wd(4) man page exists, but man 4 ad returns nothing. (Background: I'm an experienced GNU/Linux user, and I've also used OpenBSD and Solaris. But this is my first time with FreeBSD.) Thanks for any help. (Please Cc replies to me.) Happy hacking, -- David A. Madore (david.madore@ens.fr, http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/madore/ ) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message