Re: releng usb boot images and a pre-existing raid root fs

[Brian Buhrow <buhrow%nfbcal.org@localhost>]

        Hello.  If the USB keyboard works well enough for you to drop into the
boot menu, then select option 5, or which ever  one you use to get to the
boot prompt.  Then, type:
boot -a
and manually select the disk containing your install image when prompted to
get the installer to run.
        If the keyboard doesn't work that well, then, with the old system
runing, you can type, at the root prompt:
raidctl -A yes raid0
or which ever raid set you have running as your root partition.
This will cause the raid to be autoconfigured at boot, but will not cause
it to be mounted as the root partition.  Be careful with this because if
your keyboard doesn't work at the boot prompt, and you don't have an
alternate root partition available on next boot, you'll be prompted to
provide one and might get stuck.  However, if you then boot from your USB
stick, it should come up and use the USB image as the root device, but also
have the raid set available for you tu install to.

Hope that helps.
-Brian

On Feb 22,  4:26pm, Dave Tyson wrote:
} Subject: releng usb boot images and a pre-existing raid root fs
} I have a HP Microserver which has been quietly running 5.99.56 (amd64)
} for about 15 monthsand
} decided it was time to run something a bit more recent. I burnt a recent
} amd64 installation image
} from releng on to a usb stick and booted it. I was slightly suprised
} when it didn't come up with a
} sysinst install menu and instead came up inmultiuser, executing all the
} stuff in rc.conf. uname -a
} showed it was running the later release. What seemed to happen is the
} install kernel came up and
} thoughtitwas booting from the raid and mounted that as root and carried
} on regardless. I thought
} I may get around this by dropping out of the boot menu and using -as to
} force root to be the
} memory disk, butthe USB keyboard seemed to be unresponsive to typing. A
} i386 install kernel behaved
}  in the same way, butunsuprisingly croaked when it tried to exec the
} 64bit /sin/initoff the raid. The same
}  image seemed to comeup in the installer with a non-raided diskon
} another system.
} 
} So is there an issue with the installation images getting confused when
} a pre-existing installation has
} a raided root partition?
} 
} Dave 
} 
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>-- End of excerpt from Dave Tyson