Re: re-transmission: Re: Prepping to install

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

On 10 June 2015 at 16:43, William A. Mahaffey III <wam%hiwaay.net@localhost> wrote:
> On 06/09/15 17:36, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
>>
>> On 06/09/15 09:00, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
>>>
>>> On 06/09/15 08:56, Martin Husemann wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 09, 2015 at 08:50:12AM -0453, William A. Mahaffey III
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the reply. My RAID1 raid[1,2] devices are defined from
>>>>> 16 GiB
>>>>> partitions of the underlying HDD's, 2 each per raid device. They
>>>>> are not
>>>>> intended to be subdivided, AFAIK. Therefore, I'm guessing
>>>>> /dev/raid[1,2]a, right :-) ?
>>>>
>>>> Not subdivided == use the raw partition, so probably /dev/raid[1,2]d
>>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>>
>>>
>>> Gads, this pilot's all over the sky :-/ ....
>>>
>>> Would the eventually/hopefully created RAID10 device be
>>> autoconfigurable during boot ? TIA & thanks again.
>>>
>>
>> Well, a more careful re-read of the raidctl online man page informs me
>> that a RAID10 is in fact *not* autoconfigurable, so I switched to a
>> 4-device (4 X 16 GiB partitions that I was going to make into a
>> RAID10) RAID0 for /usr. I also redid the parameters of my RAID5
>> configuration, which I had chosen poorly/invalidly before, & it's
>> initializing its parity for about the next 5 hours. I just post this
>> for anyone who might follow the thread in the future. I'll be off to
>> disklabel-ing the 3 RAID's tomorrow & (hopefully) installing ....
>>
>
> OK, I'm up to the (try to) install, & hit a minor snag. I prepped my various
> filesystems closely following the attached notes, posted earlier in this
> thread & now cleaned up to reflect what I actually did in the last part of
> the install (as well as I can from memory). In particular, I prepped the
> root filesystem to be bootable. I then rebooted the box & removed the USB
> key, hopefully to reboot into an install environment upon reboot. Instead, I
> get an endless string of messages:
>
> init: can't exec getty (/usr/libexec/getty) for port /dev/console: no such
> file or directory.
>
>
> I rebooted again (hit the reset button) & inserted the USB install er back
> into the USB drive. It was acknowleged during boot, & I have the BIOS set to
> try to boot from the USB device 1st, then try hard drives next. Nonetheless,
> it still apparently tries to boot from the HDD's, & returns to that endless
> string of init messages. More pilot, error, I assume, but how do I get
> around this ? Any clues appreciated. TIA & have a good one.

Do you have a RAID1 set to autoconfigure as root? If so, it will
'steal' root even when you boot off a USB key or other.

If you drop to the boot prompt and 'boot netbsd -a' you should be
asked for a root device (among other items :)