From owner-freebsd-geom@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 24 16:22:14 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2DFB016A41A for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:22:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nino80@gmail.com) Received: from rv-out-0910.google.com (rv-out-0910.google.com [209.85.198.188]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 26E2F13C45B for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:22:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nino80@gmail.com) Received: by rv-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id l15so1299709rvb for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:22:12 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=9pG+tOkicEB3ic8qdmDJnQ1V8wFGKP+tDna5hsV38Vk=; b=nNdyYiRdX0sFm0I7rUFVhTJQfN/9MxuS7UUyBrHUPR18hg30M9lk0G/8XeGovoFRW+xKS0kYUL+I714XpiX4WlialfmW4BJZF2Ib+H0dw6qKPT03Mn0Fu/rvi9XPkQw7aG5MbBCOkpbMz1JCCgApUyPd97pOdZ+0w5CLcTCvJgI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=fsmuJ7bY9FfpPxaaJC4QG7vxTsMYcn5/ErUdhaeZnRZXAa1YJ7PGlHs1p67/s18eVbIQZj3nbI3AKv6kU4jNLRnrJ0agE831Ft8M4D/5jP+okYRE6yj53unlxEx3Jyp6mTTlQe96x9jbkVKI5eNNI5QdkD3GscGlpiygKxrtwgA= Received: by 10.141.203.12 with SMTP id f12mr1707637rvq.1190650932665; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:22:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.141.18.7 with HTTP; Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:22:12 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <92bcbda50709240922j614b2a8aka7d360d366c02221@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:22:12 +0200 From: "n j" To: "Ivan Voras" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <92bcbda50709120843o6af4bd38v8725be3f5b765b0e@mail.gmail.com> <20070913081748.GA1155@garage.freebsd.pl> <92bcbda50709210437g590df3f9y94f32d3d4d5cd1f@mail.gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Gmirror on a partition of a slice X-BeenThere: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: GEOM-specific discussions and implementations List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:22:14 -0000 On 9/21/07, Ivan Voras wrote: > > The logic behind this is probably that if you already partition or > > label the underlying consumers, you must not do the same with the > > provided mirror, i.e. you can't really treat the provided mirror as an > > entirely fresh new disk. As I said, this is maybe obvious to someone, > > but for me it was new. > Actually, you *can* do it if you really want to, because every GEOM > provider is a "whole disk" to the system, it's just that usually it's > not what you want. That is what I thought at first, but I spent a couple of days trying to boot off such a geom "disk" and had absolutely no success until I skipped the two steps Pawel pointed out. Actually, I'm beginning to think that OS has to read the boot code from an actual (physical) disk partition like da0s1a/da1s1a. In case you skip fdisk&bsdlabel on the gmirrored partition, gm0 remains the exact copy of the actual boot partition, da0s1a, and OS boots. By fdisk'ing and bsdlabel'ing the newly created disk, gm0, my understanding is that you actually change the underlying (boot) partition, da0s1a, and mess it up enough to make the system unbootable. The above interpretation, OTOH, might be completely wrong. My understanding of the boot process is very vague and you might be right. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm just saying that I tried it and it didn't work, no matter how hard I try. If you care to describe the necessary steps on how to do it, I'll try again. Regards, -- Nino