[pups] Progress on 2.11BSD kernel

Steven M. Schultz sms at 2BSD.COM
Sat Mar 22 04:26:17 AEST 2003


Hi -

> From: "Ian King" <iking at killthewabbit.org>
> Now I know I'm missing something.  I tried following your advice, using the
> disklabel utility running under the old kernel.  From what you say below, I

	Which part of the advice?   ;)

	The part of the advice that might be most useful was to put a 
	copy of the standalone disklabel program in / and boot it - NOT
	run the usermode version while the system is running.

	cd /sys/pdpstand
	make
	cp disklabel /

	then reboot the system and at the ':' prompt enter ra(0,0)disklabel

	there are things that can be done with the standalone version that
	are either impractical under a kernel (because the 'a'/root partition
	is open/busy) or because the standalone version has no safety checks.

> assume you are referring to the 'fstype' parameter on the partition, not the
> 'type' parameter for the drive, correct?  The drive type is MSCP, and the
> partition fstype is 2.11BSD.

	'fstype' is what I had in mind.  

  a:    16720        0   2.11BSD     1024  1024         # (Cyl.    0 - 39)

> I tried changing the partition type with disklabel -e -r but, when I exited
> vi, I got an error message saying that the type I'd provided was not valid.
> Viewing the label (with disklabel -r) showed the fstype set to 'unknown'.

	Now I am confused.   2.11BSD is correct - but then it's "unknown" and
	that would cause the 'iinit' panic that started this thread of
	discussion.

	Down the path of logic that results in a 'iinit' panic and the 
	'no fs' there's a check for the filesystem type and "unknown" was the
	likely cause (or at least that was the hope).

	If the standalone disklabel program says it's "2.11BSD" then there's
	something else going on - the next likely thought is that 'rootdev'
	or related entity isn't set to the device that is the actual root
	filesystem.

> Just for grins, I tried modifying the drive type, too - no success there,
> either.  The disklabel utility isn't having any of that; again it claims
> 'unknown'.

	That's not used for anything important.

> Oh well, while I'm waiting for your reply I can rebuild my kernel with a
> higher MAXUSERS parameter.  :-)

	~12 is a good number - not much need for more than that as a rule.

	Steve



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