From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Tue Apr 18 04:25:13 2017 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 1FAA9D4324D for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2017 04:25:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dpchrist@holgerdanske.com) Received: from holgerdanske.com (holgerdanske.com [184.105.128.27]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "holgerdanske.com", Issuer "holgerdanske.com" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0EE17197 for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2017 04:25:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dpchrist@holgerdanske.com) Received: from 99.100.19.101 ([99.100.19.101]) by holgerdanske.com with ESMTPSA (ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:TLSv1.2:Kx=ECDH:Au=RSA:Enc=AESGCM(128):Mac=AEAD) (SMTP-AUTH username dpchrist@holgerdanske.com, mechanism PLAIN) for ; Mon, 17 Apr 2017 21:25:08 -0700 Subject: Re: Is it possible to install FreeBSD on a single MBR slice with ZFS ? To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: From: David Christensen Message-ID: <1ec7dbd0-1c25-71d2-7685-a82dea193ba0@holgerdanske.com> Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2017 21:26:06 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Icedove/45.6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed 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: Tue, 18 Apr 2017 04:25:13 -0000 On 04/17/2017 06:45 AM, Manish Jain wrote: >>> AFAIK, the FreeBSD 11.0 installer wants the whole disk << > > Hi David, > > That appears to be my impression too : it simply is not possible to > install FreeBSD on an MBR disk (unless one is willing to use the > entire disk). Using the FreeBSD 11.0 i386 installer and choosing "Partitioning" -> "Auto (ZFS)", I was able to obtain an MBR partition table with one primary partition (BSD slice). I then used Debian GNU/Linux to move the entire system image from the 16 GB SSD to an 80 GB HDD: root@p43400e:~ # gpart show => 63 156355521 ada0 MBR (75G) 63 1 - free - (512B) 64 31277160 1 freebsd [active] (15G) 31277224 125078360 - free - (60G) => 0 31277160 ada0s1 BSD (15G) 0 4194304 1 freebsd-zfs (2.0G) 4194304 4194304 2 freebsd-swap (2.0G) 8388608 22888544 4 freebsd-zfs (11G) 31277152 8 - free - (4.0K) > That is a fairly serious inconvenience : I hate the idea of having to > use GPT on my disk because I cannot use the Boot Easy manager > (boot0cfg) under GPT. Plus GPT inevitably leads to reckless > partitioning. > > For disks under and upto 2 TB, MBR is supremely better. > > I did manage to get ZFS though, courtesy a spare slice available on > my disk. > > I installed FreeBSD using UFS on ada0s2 and migrated the setup to a > ZFS tank under ada0s3 using the rsync strategy brilliantly detailed > at : > > https://imil.net/blog/2016/04/28/Migrate-FreeBSD-root-on-UFS-to-ZFS/ > > But following the migration, I have made a serious error. I used > Windows (ada0s1) to delete ada0s2 : Windows has rearranged the MBR > table to make ada0s3 -> ada0s2. I am now struggling to fix the MBR > table. If you have any tips, that shall be wonderful I tried multi-boot years ago -- it was a PITA. I have invested in extra system drives and mobile docks. Each of my system drives has exactly one operating system image: https://www.startech.com/HDD/Mobile-Racks/35in-Trayless-Hot-Swap-SATA-Mobile-Rack-for-Dual-25in-Hard-Drives~HSB225SATBK https://www.startech.com/HDD/Mobile-Racks/Black-Serial-ATA-Drive-Drawer-with-Shock-Absorbers-Professional-Series~DRW115SATBK David