From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sun Oct 16 05:41:55 2016 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 3F857C13C8E for ; Sun, 16 Oct 2016 05:41:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) (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 0174821E for ; Sun, 16 Oct 2016 05:41:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-117-205.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.117.205]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7ED803CDB8; Sun, 16 Oct 2016 07:41:52 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id u9G5fqsi002139; Sun, 16 Oct 2016 07:41:52 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2016 07:41:52 +0200 From: Polytropon To: "Jason C. Wells" Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Filesystem Label Ambiguity Message-Id: <20161016074152.bd610621.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <7936f7d9-6391-5ced-53d7-5b8d423b2aad@fastmail.com> References: <86pon1dwze.fsf@WorkBox.Home> <5802C836.1060607@gmail.com> <7936f7d9-6391-5ced-53d7-5b8d423b2aad@fastmail.com> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2016 05:41:55 -0000 On Sat, 15 Oct 2016 18:22:46 -0700, Jason C. Wells wrote: > New question related to this topic. I re-labeled my partitions and my > filesystems to use unique labels (volumeN). When I mounted what I > thought was a new empty partition, I found old files there. Ack! Don't think. Know. ;-) > Even though I had provided new unique labels, my mount was mounting an > unknown partition and disk. This behavior persists across a reboot. Some > configuration somewhere is hanging on to old labels, or some other > behavior that I misunderstand. I'm in a situation now where I cannot > identify or trust that any partition is the intended partition to mount. > > How do I go backward from a label to a special device file? ( a slightly > different question than before ) The approach depends on your physical setting. It it possible to examine each disk individually, partition per partition? If yes, mount each one r/o (and those you cannot mount are probably swap partitions). Use the device names first, and probably make a list to avoid further confusion, containing disk identifier (enumerate the disks or put color stickers on them), partition number, label, fule system type (if relevant), content. > I'll answer my own question, glabel status and the man page for glabel > seem to offer some help. Any other pointers are welcome. Yes, you can use those tools, as well as the gpart command for identifying what's on the disks. Check the name "provider" within the documentation. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...