Re: kern/49217: "installboot" fails under NetBSD/amd64

[Matthias Scheler <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR kern/49217; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Matthias Scheler <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost>
To: Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>
Cc: NetBSD GNATS <gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost>
Subject: Re: kern/49217: "installboot" fails under NetBSD/amd64
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:30:39 +0100

 On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 09:30:01AM +0000, Robert Elz wrote:
 >    |         tron@lyssa:~#installboot -v /dev/rwd0a /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1
 >    |         installboot: Opening file system `/dev/rwd0a' read-write: 
 > Device busy
 >  
 >    | >How-To-Repeat:
 >    | Read installboot(1) and follow the instructions for installing the 
 > bootblock
 >  
 >  When you read the instructions you're supposed to recognise that the
 >  examples are just that, examples, and not intended to be taken literally
 >  in all circumstances.
 
 If I'm not mistaken the current example *will not work on any system*.
 It will definitely not work on system with SATA or IDE disks (my use case).
 And it will also mislead people who use SCSI or hardware RAID drives to
 use "sd0a" or "ld0a". And neither of those will work.
 
 So unless we fix the behaviour (see below) there is at least a
 documentation bug.
 
 >  Perhaps installboot(8) could have an extra example added to show how
 >  to installboot onto a wedge, but since the difference is just to replace
 >  wd0a with dkN (for some integer N) (just as you would have to replace wd0a
 >  with wd1a, or sd0a, or something else in appropriate circumstances) I'm
 >  not sure even that is required.
 
 It seems that "mount" understand wedges. Because without changing my
 "fstab" from "wd0*" to "dk*" mount(8) just worked. The file systems
 got mounted and df(1) reports "dk0" and "dk2" as the devices afterwards.
 
 So there is clearly a user friendly way to handle this problem.
 
 >  This PR should close, there is no installboot or kernel bug here.
 
 Well, I happen to disagree.
 
        Kind regards
 
 -- 
 Matthias Scheler                                 https://zhadum.org.uk/