From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 8 02:45:44 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 992FF16A4BF for ; Mon, 8 Sep 2003 02:45:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from oahu.WURLDLINK.NET (oahu.wurldlink.net [66.193.144.7]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A67DC43FEA for ; Mon, 8 Sep 2003 02:45:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from vince@oahu.WURLDLINK.NET) Received: from oahu.WURLDLINK.NET (vince@localhost.WURLDLINK.NET [127.0.0.1]) by oahu.WURLDLINK.NET (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h889hPOt027353; Sun, 7 Sep 2003 23:43:28 -1000 (HST) Received: from localhost (vince@localhost)h889hPYw027350; Sun, 7 Sep 2003 23:43:25 -1000 (HST) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2003 23:43:25 -1000 (HST) From: Vincent Poy To: Mark In-Reply-To: <200309080926.H889QZQM051659@asarian-host.net> Message-ID: <20030907234201.H64375-100000@oahu.WURLDLINK.NET> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: questions@freebsd.org cc: Ruben de Groot cc: Joshua Oreman Subject: Re: Ghost for FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 09:45:44 -0000 On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Mark wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Vincent Poy" > To: "Mark" > Cc: "Ruben de Groot" ; ; "Joshua > Oreman" > Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 10:16 AM > Subject: Re: Ghost for FreeBSD > > Sorry for the tardiness of my reply (see below); I was otherwise engaged. > > > > But what if I just made a boo-boo on the root partition? My quandary has > > > always been that I know of no way to restore the / slice on the existing > > > disk-set (RAID-1). I can boot off the CD, but then I am still stuck on > > > the same / slice. Although I have not yet messed up / to the point of > > > having to do a full restore, this might well be needed at some point (an > > > extended power-outage, for instance, ruining the file-system). > > > > Well, if you made a error on the root partition, this assumes you > > did not mirror your errors to the backup drive... Then all you have to do > > is boot using the backup drive from the Boot Manager. > > > > > Would it work if I mounted a "spare" partition, on the same array, > > > restore the root partition therein, and then edited /etc/fstab > > > accordingly? It seems to me, though, that the kernel cannot possibly use > > > /etc/fstab to determine what device the root partition will be, as > > > /etc/fstab is itself on that root-partition. So, I then take it the MBR > > > supplies the entry-point for FreeBSD to boot from (which will be > > > considered the root partition), so that booting of a "spare" slice would > > > require an edit in the MBR (which I am not too keen on doing, btw). > > > > No, you would not have to mount it. Assuming you had the FreeBSD > > Boot Manager on the drives... > > Ok. But this still means that, in order to restore the root partition, I > will need to boot from a different drive, right? And I have no other, > bootable drive in the machine: just the array. I had hoped that booting from > the FreeBSD boot CD would have the same effect as booting from a different > hard disk; but alas, the FreeBSD boot CD mounts the existing array, which > brings me back to square one. Yeah, basically you just need to get FreeBSD booted up so that you can use the dump/restore commands. > Which, of course, prompts the question: is there not a way to boot from the > FreeBSD boot CD that does not use the existing array? No idea about that one since you can always boot using the root/mfs and fixit floppies and then mount/dump/restore. > Thanks, > > - Mark Cheers, Vince - vince@WURLDLINK.NET - Vice President ________ __ ____ Unix Networking Operations - FreeBSD-Real Unix for Free / / / / | / |[__ ] WurldLink Corporation / / / / | / | __] ] San Francisco - Honolulu - Hong Kong / / / / / |/ / | __] ] HongKong Stars/Gravis UltraSound Mailing Lists Admin /_/_/_/_/|___/|_|[____] Almighty1@IRC - oahu.DAL.NET Hawaii's DALnet IRC Network Server Admin