Re: Can't mount the root partition r/w! :(

In message <[email protected]>
          Reinoud Zandijk <[email protected]> wrote:

Sorry to take so long to get back to this!

> On Sun, Oct 13, 2002 at 11:54:12PM +0100, Peter Bell wrote:
> > It's been a while since I last played with my NetBSD box (using one of
> > the 'daily' releases of 1.6), so I thought that I would do a fresh
> > install from scratch.
> > 
> > However, having fetched all the sets via ftp and unpacked them (all
> > under the control of sysinst), I then alter fastboot to load the
> > kernel from the NetBSD disk (I have wd1, on the RPC internal
> > interface, dedicated to BSD).  Fine - it boots up, but with the
> > partition mounted r/o, and whatever I do, I can't get it into a
> > writable state.
> 
> Sounds fine... i guess you had to edit the `fastboot' file to configure to 
> use wd1?

Yes.

> > # mount
> > root_device on / type ffs (read-only, local)
> > # mount -u -w /
> > mount_ffs: root_device on /: No such file or directory
> 
> Hmm... if rc.conf is not configured it will stop at this place yes. I think 
> your /etc/fstab needs some attention. I think something is wrong in there 
> that gives rise to both problems.

Yep, the fstab was in a 'funny' state.

There were 3 lines in it - for root, swp and usr, but the root and usr
lines were commented out, and didn't even have the mount points
specified.  Removing the # and adding a / for the root partition got
things up and running!

Would this have resulted from selecting 'keep existing' partitions
when it came to create the disk label - ISTR seeing something about
having to specify the mount points if taking this option?

Otherwise, the 'funny' state may have been a result of using wd1 for
BSD (wd0 remains totally dedicated to filecore).

Anyway, I'm just going through the complete installation again, this
time setting custom partition sizes.  I intend to use this box as a
server, so most of the disk will be used for /var.  What is a sensible
size to set for the /usr partition, to allow for system builds etc.?

As a first cut, I'm using 1000MB root, 500MB swap, 1500MB usr and the
other 40000MB var.  Obviously, I could allow more /usr space if
necessary.

-- 
Peter Bell - [email protected]