Re: hang/panic: newfs of 4.3 FFS (filesystem only) on vnd1

On Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 04:40:27PM -0700, Chris Hanson wrote:
 > Not sure yet whether this is in the filesystem or block device
 > driver or something else, but I just had my ProLiant DL360p Gen8
 > running 11.0 + fixes hang/panic while trying to create a ?v0? (4.3)
 > FFS filesystem (only, no disklabel) in an empty file mounted at
 > vnd0.

Almost certainly vnd, alas, that's by far the least stable piece of
that setup. Anyway, if you see it again, please file a full report :-|

 > PS - Why I?m doing this: I managed to fully boot the MacMach
 > install/rescue RAM disk in an emulated Mac IIx in MAME (now that
 > A/UX works in it), but there?s no straightforward way to actually
 > perform an installation without some sort of media image. MacMach
 > uses Apple rather than BSD partitioning, but still uses the 4.3
 > Tahoe filesystem.

I would be very dubious that a recent newfs can make an image that
anything actually from the 4.3 era can read and write. There have been
a number of only semi-compatible changes in FFS since then and I don't
think the available version switches really cover the territory.

If it doesn't have its own newfs the best bet is probably to grab the
4.3-tahoe sources and build that, which will probably be at least
tedious :-|

-- 
David A. Holland
[email protected]