FreeBSD 9, GPT and gmirror

[Gary Aitken]

I can't speak to the mirror issue, but I had difficulty trying to tweak 
the defaults in the install on a 128G SSD:

When manually configuring the SSD, I tried to leave some extra space at 
the end of the SSD.  Not sure that is necessary or not.  In any case, I 
had a 128GB SSD, reported as 119GB.  Auto config laid it out as

ada1 119GB
   ada1p1   64KB freebsd-boot
   ada1p2  115GB freebsd-ufs  /
   ada1p3    4GB freebsd-swap

I then deleted the last 2 and re-created as 100GB and 4GB, at which 
point it showed

ada1 119GB
   ada1p1   64KB freebsd-boot
   ada1p2  100GB freebsd-ufs  /
   ada1p3  -15GB freebsd-swap

    (I may have the -15 wrong; main point is it was negative)
After deleting and recreating in different order I managed to get it to

ada1 119GB
   ada1p1   64KB freebsd-boot
   ada1p3    4GB freebsd-swap
   ada1p2  100GB freebsd-ufs  /
but when I tried to commit it, I got the error:

Error mounting partition /mnt:
mount: /dev/ada1p2: Operation not permitted

The only way I could get it to actually write the distribution was to 
use auto and keep what it came up with.  Is this problem specific to 
SSDs (seems unlikely)?  Is there some magic sequence needed to tweak the 
Auto result to get it to work?

Gary

On 2/8/2012 12:00 PM, Bas Smeelen wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 13:42:59 -0500
> Janos Dohanics<web at 3dresearch.com>  wrote:
>
>> Hello Everyone,
>>
>> May be I should have searched more for answers, but after installing
>> FreeBSD 9 with gmirror, I am wondering if the experts here have some
>> recommendations for "best practices".
>>
>> 1. The Guided partitioning doesn't suggest any more to
>> create /var, /tmp, /usr, etc. file systems. Is it really the
>> recommendation to go with just / ?
>
> This is a bad recommendation I think, but you can accept guidance and
> the adjust to your needs.
>>
>> 2. Is there a way to use the old sysinstall to install FreeBSD 9?
>
> Yes, harder to use, or no the new installer should have some more sane
> defaults
>>
>> 3. It seems that setting up gmirror is more involved with GPT
>> (http://blather.michaelwlucas.com/archives/1071); now I have a mirror
>> for each of the filesystems /, /var, /tmp, etc. Is it OK to use
>> gmirror in this way at all?
>>
>> 4. Also, with GPT, one has to be in single user mode to synchronize
>> disks - correct?
>>
>> 3. Assuming one has enough RAM, is zfs mirror or raidz recommended
>> over gmirror?
>
> gmirror, still I think
>
>>
>> Prior to FreeBSD 9, I used to take the the sysinstall defaults with
>> some overrides as I thought appropriate and proceeded to set up
>> gmirror - it was simple and not a lot of work, and a good way to make
>> use of older systems...
>
> I think the new installer is quite good, but needs some shaving around
> the rough edges
>
> Cheers
>
>
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>
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