Subject: Re: installing on 4/280 & SMD disk
To: Peter Maydell <pm215@cam.ac.uk>
From: Michael C. Richardson <mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>
List: port-sparc
Date: 02/22/1998 18:47:37
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>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Maydell <pm215@cam.ac.uk> writes:
Peter> Firstly, are there restrictions on where you're allowed to put
Peter> partitions? If you define partitions (using sunos format) with a
Peter> starting at cyl 0 and then dd the miniroot into it, the PROM
Peter> refuses to boot that partition. Also, I seem to have managed to
I think this is because your dd is trashing the disklabel. If you started
xd1a a cyl 1, that wouldn't happen. Normally, newfs knows to skip the
disklabel...
Peter> As I understand it you're supposed to dd the miniroot into
Peter> partition b (swap). So I defined some plausible looking partitions
Peter> (a = root, b = swap, g = /usr, c = whole disk) for xd1 and dd'd
Peter> the miniroot into /dev/xd1b. If you then reboot and tell the PROM
Peter> to boot xd(0,1,1) it successfully loads the kernel. However, the
Peter> kernel then decides that its root fs should be on /dev/xd1a and
What happens if you add -as ? That sounds like a bug to me!
You don't mention which version you are trying to install.
Peter> If you dd the miniroot into /dev/xd1a then it boots correctly but
Peter> then the install process runs newfs on /dev/xd1a which trashes the
Peter> miniroot before install has finished using it :-<
Yes :-)
Peter> Is there a way to tell the kernel to use a given device as the
Peter> root disk? This would presumably be the Right Way to solve the
yes. Boot with -a, and it will prompt.
Peter> problem. My other plan of attack is to define partitions in SunOS
Peter> such that xd1a is the right size for the swap partition, boot the
Peter> miniroot from it, and then redefine the disklabel in install to
Peter> swap xd1a and xd1b. Would this work?
Sounds okay.
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Michael Richardson |Network and security consulting and contract programming
Personal: mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca. PGP key available.
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