Re: Removing fdisk and bsdlabel (legacy partition tools)

In message <CAPyFy2CK0Vq8U6J-H4XU3pNA33-uKAxUoNOAbM9SdSFa0Bcqkg@mail.gmail.c
om>
, Ed Maste writes:
> MBR (PC BIOS) partition tables were historically maintained with
> fdisk(8), but gpart(8) has long been the preferred method for working
> with partition tables of all types. fdisk has been declared as
> obsolete in the man page since 2015. Similarly BSD disklabels were
> historically maintained with bsdlabel. It does not yet have a
> deprecation notice - I have proposed a man page addition in
> https://reviews.freebsd.org/D43563.
>
> I would like to disconnect these from the build, and subsequently
> remove them. This is prompted by a recent bsdlabel bug report which
> uncovered a longstanding buffer overflow in that tool. Effort is much
> better focused on contemporary, maintained tools rather than
> investigating issues in deprecated ones. Removing these tools would
> happen in FreeBSD 15 only (no change in 14 or 13).
>
> Code review to disconnect fdisk: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D43575
>
> Note that this effort is limited to these maintenance tools only -
> there is no change to kernel or gpart support for MBR or BSD
> disklablel partitioning. That said, MBR partitioning and BSD
> disklabels are best considered legacy formats and should be avoided
> for new installations, if possible.
>
> If anyone is using fdisk and/or bsdlabel rather than gpart I would
> appreciate knowing what is preventing you from using the contemporary
> tools.
>

We need to fix the kern.geom.debugflags sysctl foot shooting option so that 
it works. (Not that bsdlabel or fdisk worked around the issue). Otherwise 
one is left with boot to single user or from alternate media if that 
doesn't work.

I do have a patch that circumvents the problem. I haven't looked it it in 
years and probably needs some cleanup though.


-- 
Cheers,
Cy Schubert <Cy.Schubert@cschubert.com>
FreeBSD UNIX:  <cy@FreeBSD.org>   Web:  https://FreeBSD.org
NTP:           <cy@nwtime.org>    Web:  https://nwtime.org

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