From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 21 18:15:47 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 45B3BD6B for ; Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:15:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EF9098FC13 for ; Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:15:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id qALIFj1S007131; Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:15:45 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.5/8.14.5/Submit) with ESMTP id qALIFjRA007128; Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:15:45 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:15:45 -0700 (MST) From: Warren Block To: Arthur Chance Subject: Re: gpt booting (Was: Re: boot problem after freebsd-update from 9.1-RC2 to 9.1-RC3) In-Reply-To: <50AC9409.1030609@qeng-ho.org> Message-ID: References: <50ABE97B.5030408@johnea.net> <50AC041A.7050607@dreamchaser.org> <50AC3116.6010600@johnea.net> <50AC9409.1030609@qeng-ho.org> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:15:45 -0700 (MST) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:15:47 -0000 On Wed, 21 Nov 2012, Arthur Chance wrote: > On 11/21/12 05:11, Warren Block wrote: >> gptboot looks for the first UFS partition. Maybe /boot/boot can be >> modified to do that also. > > It's a little more complicated than that Warren. > > AIUI gptboot first looks (in partition order) for partitions with both the > bootme and bootonce attributes set. If it doesn't find any, or if they all > failed to boot it then tries booting partitions with just the bootme > attribute. It only boots the first UFS partition if no partitions have the > bootme attribute set, and IIRC that is for compatibility with the 8.x gptboot > which didn't know the boot* attributes. > > Confusingly, there's no manual page for gptboot to document this. It's sort > of implicit in the gpart manual page, in the section on ATTRIBUTES for GPT, > but the best way to understand it is to read the code for gptfind in > > /usr/src/sys/boot/common/gpt.c Well, yes. The point is that gptboot doesn't just assume that p2, say, is where the bootable UFS partition must be. I've also noted the lack of a gptboot man page, and it's on my long list of Things That Should Be Done. There was a thread on -doc: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-doc/2012-June/020060.html Help would be greatly appreciated.