Re: Prepping to install

["William A. Mahaffey III" <wam%hiwaay.net@localhost>]

On 05/12/15 01:34, Robert Elz wrote:
>      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.

Agreed. I said improbable because I have had spotless good luck w/ 2.5" 
HDD's vs. older 3.5" drives, especially larger ones (> ~600 GB). My last 
2 builds used 2.5" drives exclusively & both are ship-shape after 
prolonged 24/7 operation, for several years (since ~2010-ish) in the 
case of my 1st foray into the smaller form factor. They seem to run 
noticeably cooler (~10C), & fit 2-to-a-3.5"-bay w/ cooling space between.

> 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.)

Interesting, RAID swap ? I have that on my other box (server) w/ the 
2.5" drives & I'm about to reconfigure it to go back to letting the 
kernel manage swap, rather than mdadm (it runs FC14 64-bit linux), due 
to *very* slow swap performance (takes several minutes to page a few 
hundred MB of paged-out-VM back in). What I actually want is the ability 
to boot & run if 1 of the drives goes out, long enough to procure a 
replacement & install it. I expect it to croak if the drive dies while 
booted, although if it could die somewhat gracefully, that would be a plus.

>    | 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.)

OK, sold, no separate boot partition. This is the sort of insight I was 
hoping for here, thanks :-).

> 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).

Good idea, will familiarize me w/ the installer & its 
preferences/foibles ....

> 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).

I will probably use this almost verbatim, w/o a separate /usr/pkg. My 
~60 GB /usr 'partition' on this box is only about 17% full right now, w/ 
full graphics, XFCE desktop & full ports tree, as well as some 
playthings installed, I think I will be OK w/ /usr/pkg under /usr. I 
maintain this box w/ pkg(ng) almost exclusively, except for the 
flash-support port, necessary for some websites I use regularly. 
Otherwise, pkg exclusively, & I plan to follow that protocol (pkg_* 
exclusively) w/ this box as well. /home will be the largest partition by 
far for now here, although I am thinking of adding more drives in the 
future, but that will wait a while.

> 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 will try this, good idea.

> 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

Thanks for a fabulously insightful reply, lots of good wisdom here. I 
was planning on GPT, glad to hear it's supported here.

--

	William A. Mahaffey III

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	"The M1 Garand is without doubt the finest implement of war
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