Re: Prepping to install

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Mon, 11 May 2015 19:16:42 -0453
    From:        "William A. Mahaffey III" <wam%hiwaay.net@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <555144F3.6020003%hiwaay.net@localhost>

  | I concur on the observation about OS recovery, I want the box to be 
  | failsafe w/ 1 HDD going out, a *highly* improbable event,

Not that improbable - they're moving parts, like fans, they wear over time.
Leave the system running long enough, one will die &/or develop bad spots.

So yes, raid1 (or raid5) everything (including swap space) if you want the
system to keep running for long periods (and of course, depending on what
"keep running" really means, perhaps even arrange for hot swap drives,
so you can replace a bad one without a shutdown.)

  | Another reply mentioned partitioning, w/o a boot partition.

Depends what a "boot partition" is in your mind - one problem you're going
to have is that while NetBSD and FreeBSD are very similar, there are also
lots & lots of little differences - and one of those is terminology (NetBSD
for example has no "slices" -- the MBR partitioning is still there, but it
isn't called that, and NetBSD disk labels work differently).

But if you mean /boot then you absolutely do not want that on NetBSD, /boot
is a program, and it must be on the root (really, boot) partition.

If you mean just "a separate partition for booting from", then perhaps, some
people like that (in the NetBSD world), some do not, and most never even
consider it so have no real opinion...   (That is basically a copy of the
root, but with a minimal config, just enough to get booted, and then find
the real root - the "boot partition" is then not normally mounted, makes it
harder for hackers to alter your boot setup.)

Because you're new to NetBSD, I strongly recommend doing a simple install onto
one disk first, aside from anything else, it will help you judge your
partitioning better (you'll get an idea what sizes you want - if you've come
from a recent FreeBSD you'd probably want to size the root partition way bigger
than NetBSD needs for example).

For long term stability, what I recommend is to split / /var /usr /usr/pkg 
(which is where normally on NetBSD you put what is in /usr/local on FreeBSD,
/usr/local on NetBSD is truly local, and you don't need it at all if you're
not into making local (private) updates) and /home (if you are going to have
any users doing anything).  Then extras for whatever real work the system will
be doing (the stuff that must be backed up ... do not rely on raid for that,
no raid around will fix accidental "rm" commands... all the system partitions
can just be reinstalled if necessary, but your private data cannot, so
plan the partitions with backups in mind).    I separate /var because that's
one partition that is constantly being written - but where while nice to
keep, none of the data really *must* be recovered - syslog files, /var/tmp,
wtmp /var/spool and all of that, can be just written off in a disaster,
NetBSD won't normally mangle filesystems, but in combination with strange
hardware and environment, almost anything is possible).

In any case, doing a full NetBSD install (after you've practiced it once
or twice to become familiar) only takes 10 minutes (or less) so it is
easy to just do it once, play around, throw that way and do it again,
until you're happy.

For your config, what I'd recommend is to plug in just one drive, install
onto that, look around a bit, check out sizes etc, then decide what you
want the layout to be like.   Then I'd connect the other drives and use
the running system to set things up the way you want (not using sysinst
to install there at all) - you have much more flexibility, and many more
tools at that point.

I'd also suggest perhaps forgetting the MBR/disklabel stuff, and launching
directly into GPT - you don't require it for 1TB drives, but in a few more
years when 1TB drives become rare and hard to find (try buying a 160MB drive
today...) you might regret sticking with the older labelling.   If you do
decide to do that, I'd suggest NetBSD 7 (even the current 7 Beta) over 6,
GPT works in NetBSD 6, but support is (or will be) much better in 7.

kre