Maximum size of FFS partition with NetBSD/i386

[Ray Phillips <r.phillips%uq.edu.au@localhost>]

I connected four 1 TB disks to a 3ware 8506-4LP RAID controller, 
created two RAID0 arrays of equal size, nominally 2 TB, using the 
3ware BIOS utility, then attempted to make a single FFS partition on 
one of them using an install CD created from NetBSD/i386 5.0.1's 
boot.iso file, but it didn't work.

Here are the lines from dmesg relating to the controller and disks:

twe0 at pci1 dev 9 function 0: 3ware Escalade
twe0: interrupting at irq 9
twe0: 4 ports, Firmware FE8S 1.05.00.068, BIOS BE7X 1.08.00.048
twe0: Monitor ME7X 1.01.00.040, PCB Rev5    , Achip 3.20    , Pchip 1.30-66
twe0: port 0: ST31000528AS                             953869 MB
twe0: port 1: ST31000528AS                             953869 MB
twe0: port 2: ST31000528AS                             953869 MB
twe0: port 3: ST31000528AS                             953869 MB
ld0 at twe0 unit 0: 64K stripe RAID0, status: Normal
ld0: 1863 GB, 243202 cyl, 255 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 3907046144 sectors
ld1 at twe0 unit 2: 64K stripe RAID0, status: Normal
ld1: 1863 GB, 243202 cyl, 255 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 3907046144 sectors

Here are the notes I made of the steps I followed in systinst:

On which disk to you want to install NetBSD?

Available disks
a: ld0
b: ld1

Chose a:

Select your distribution

Chose a: Full installation


This disk matches the following BIOS disks:

   BIOS # cylinders heads sectors total sectors   GB
   ------ --------- ----- ------- ------------- ----
0:   0x80      1024   255      63    3907046144 2000
1:   0x81      1024   255      63    3097046144 2000


Chose a: Use one of these disks

Choose disk: [0]:

Chose b: Use the entire disk


Do you want to install the NetBSD bootcode?

Chose a: Yes


Chose a: Set sizes of NetBSD partitions


Initially this was the table:

     MB         Cylinders   Sectors   Filesystem
    211(4294777882        27    433755 + /
      0                 0         0   swap
      0                 0         0   tmp (mfs)
      0                 0         0   /usr
      0                 0         0   /var
      0                 0         0   /home


Used down arrow to select 'swap' line and entered 1024 for 'Size for 
swap in MB? [133]:'

swap line changed to:

   1027               131   2104515  /usr


Last line on screen was:

Reduce partition sizes by 190654 MB (309459485 sectors).

Used the up arrow to select the '/' line, typed 1048576 for 'Size for / in MB?

/ line changed to:

4293918734         42948336232147510551   /

and last line changed to:

Accept partition sizes.  Free space 858120 MB, 12 free partitions.

when 2 ^ 21 viz 2097152 was entered for the size of a: the / line changed to:

      0                 0         0  /

and last line changed to 'Reduce partition sizes by 190442 MB 
(390025730 sectors).'

By trial and error I found 1096701 was the largest value which didn't 
change the last line to 'Reduce partition sizes...' and these were 
the values it produced on the a: line:

4294775854      42949430183904941226    /


We now have your BSD-disklabel partitions as:
This is your last chance to change them.

   Start  MB   End  MB  Size  MB FS type    Newfs Mount Mount point
   --------- --------- --------- ---------- ----- ----- -----------
a:         0   1906708   1906709 FFSv1      Yes   Yes   /
b:   1906709   1907736      1027 swap
c:         0   1907736   1907737 NetBSD partition
d:         0   1907736   1907737 Whole disk
e:         0         0         0 unused


Shall we continue: Yes


     Status: Finished
    Command: disklabel -w -r -f /tmp/disktab ld0 'mydisk'
     Hit enter to continue
---------------------------------------------------------------------
disklabel: warning, partition a: size 0, but offset 63
disklabel: partitions a and b overlap
disklabel: warning, partition c: size 0m but offset 63


when Enter pressed:


     Status: Command failed
    Command: /sbin/newfs -V2 -0 1 -b 16384 -f 2048 /dev/rld0a
     Hit enter to continue
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ld0: no raw partition and partition table is full
newfs: /dev/rld0a partition is unavailable


I erased the partition that had been created by using 'dd 
if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rld0d count=8k' then started again, this time 
entering 1000000 for the size of the a: partition. The "ld0: no raw 
partition and partition table is full" error still appeared but newfs 
seemed to be working (I've left if running for the time being and 
will see what's happened tomorrow).

Is this behaviour expected?  Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to make a 
partition as big as that?


Ray