gpart

[Doug Hardie]

On 31 March 2013, at 18:28, Grant Peel <gpeel at thenetnow.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> 
> 
> I am in the midst of setting up the framework for new servers using FreeBSD
> 9.1. I used the bsdinstall and Manual`` option when setting up the disk
> geometry using GPT - graphical setup.
> 
> 
> 
> The idea will be to eventually dump the 4 file systems, (/, /usr /var and
> /home) and restore them on other servers when the time comes.
> 
> 
> 
> I am reading everything there is about GPT at this point as I have never
> used it before. It seems gpart is the tool to use.
> 
> 
> 
> I have done several test runs setting the drive geometry using this as a
> guide:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html
> 
> 
> 
> Which worked well. But as yet I do not have dumps to test with.
> 
> 
> 
> I was wondering in anyone sees any issues creating the drive geometry using
> this method, with the intent of restoring dumped filesystems to to,
> including the root filesystem.
> 
> 
> 
> I am yet to use 9.1 to do so, so any tips would be appreciated.

I just finished doing exactly that.  Worked fine.  I installed 9.1 on a drive and it had boot problems.  Apparently the drive was previously a part of a raid and graid would get involved during boot and wait and wait and wait.  To get rid of that, I formatted another drive using gpart and then used dump-restore to move the data from the first drive to the second.  The new drive is now the master drive for the system.  The original drive has been returned to a spare drive pool. The new drive boots fine and just works.  I did a complete zero of the drive before starting the partitioning though as I have no way of knowing if that drive was previously in a raid array.