Subject: Re: problem with dhclient
To: Perry E. Metzger <perry@wasabisystems.com>
From: None <russe@electriclichen.com>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 10/03/2001 16:47:40
Thanks, Perry.  I bet this will get me off the ground.  Obviously, I'm
just learning my way around NetBSD, and I appreciate the help.

I found the section in the NetBSD guide that talks about mounting a
MSDOS partition; don't know how I missed that before.

-russ


"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@wasabisystems.com> writes:

> russe@electriclichen.com writes:
> > > It is inefficient to guess what's on your system -- type "ifconfig -a"
> > > to list all your connected devices.
> > 
> > This prints entries for many devices that I don't have on my system.
> 
> I guarantee you that you have each and every one of them. Some of them
> may be pseudodevices like ppp and gif devices, but you've got
> them. That shows all the network devices the kernel knows about -- no
> more, no less.
> 
> > > If you don't notice your ethernet devices there, try typing "dmesg"
> > > and scan your boot messages to see what happened when the machine
> > > booted.
> > 
> > Is there something specific I should be looking for?
> 
> You should be looking for the thing probing and examining the cardbus
> device in question.
> 
> > > I'm sure it is, but your particular kernel might not. What version of
> > > NetBSD are you running, and what type of kernel?
> > 
> > I have installed the default 1.5.1 kernel from a CD that I purchased.
> > I don't know enough about NetBSD to respond to your question about
> > what type of kernel.
> 
> Okay, as the documentation explains, many modern laptops require that
> a bunch of the PCIBIOS options be turned on, but they aren't on by
> default in GENERIC.
> 
> One thing that might make things work better is using the kernel you
> can get in 
> ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.5.2/i386/binary/kernel/netbsd.GENERIC_LAPTOP.gz
> 
> > > > In a related note, I don't see my FAT32 partition when I run:
> > > > 
> > > >   disklabel wd0
> > > 
> > > That only shows your NetBSD disk label.
> > > 
> > > Try the "fdisk" program to see the MBR partitions.
> > 
> > OK.  I'm trying to mount my windows partition, I know it's the first
> > MBR partition.  How do I name this partition, so I can give it as an
> > argument to the mount command?
> 
> You have to allocate a slot in the NetBSD disklabel for the windows
> partition and then mount mount the slot.
> 
> The deal is that NetBSD doesn't care about the MBR partitions, only
> the partitions listed in its own disk label. (The only part of NetBSD
> that actually knows anything about the MBR partitions is the boot
> loader, which knows to look for NetBSD on the NetBSD MBR partition.)
> Note that the NetBSD disk label lists absolute sectors on the disk,
> not ones relative to its own MBR partition, so it is happy to think of
> any contiguous slice of sectors on the disk as a "partition."
> 
> You thus take the parameters for the MBR partition windows runs on and
> put them into a slot in the NetBSD partition so NetBSD will think of
> that as a partition and let you mount it as an msdos file system.
> 
> As a real example, here is my fdisk output on a machine I own:
> 
> NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
> cylinders: 16383 heads: 15 sectors/track: 63 (945 sectors/cylinder)
> 
> BIOS disk geometry:
> cylinders: 1022 heads: 240 sectors/track: 63 (15120 sectors/cylinder)
> 
> Partition table:
> 0: sysid 11 (Primary DOS with 32 bit FAT)
>     start 63, size 14333697 (6998 MB), flag 0x80
>         beg: cylinder    0, head   1, sector  1
>         end: cylinder  947, head 239, sector 63
> 1: sysid 169 (NetBSD)
>     start 14333760, size 24736320 (12078 MB), flag 0x0
>         beg: cylinder  948, head   0, sector  1
>         end: cylinder 1021, head 239, sector 63
> 
> Note that the FAT file system starts at 63 and is 14333697 long.
> 
> I noted that the "h" partition on my drive was unused, and set up my
> disk label on my machine this way:
> 
> 8 partitions:
> #        size    offset     fstype  [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
>  a:  23685480  14333760     4.2BSD   1024  8192    16   # (Cyl. 15168 - 40231)
>  b:   1050840  38019240       swap                      # (Cyl. 40232 - 41343)
>  c:  24736320  14333760     unused      0     0         # (Cyl. 15168 - 41343)
>  d:  39070080         0     unused      0     0         # (Cyl.    0 - 41343)
>  h:  14333697        63      MSDOS                      # (Cyl.    0*- 15167)
> 
> This allows me to mount the windows partition as /dev/wd0h
> (obviously). Remember to tell the mount command that it is an msdos
> partition.
> 
> IMPORTANT: Do NOT be tempted to use the "c" or "d" partitions, even
> though they are labeled "unused". They are special. c is the whole of
> the NetBSD partition, and d is the whole disk. Lots of stuff requires
> things to be that way!
> 
> --
> Perry E. Metzger		perry@wasabisystems.com
> --
> NetBSD Development, Support & CDs. http://www.wasabisystems.com/

--
"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
             -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)