Re: www/faq14: make it obvious that file for the new softraid device must have been created

On 2026/07/25 15:35, Lucas de Sena wrote:
> Ping.
> 
> On 2026-07-01, Lucas de Sena wrote:
> > When i last installed OpenBSD on a mirror raid, i failed because i had
> > not created the special file for the new softraid(4) device.  A short
> > notice would have saved me from some headaches.  So i wrote this patch.
> > 
> > I know there's already a paragraph, at the beginning of that section, on
> > manually creating /dev entries (which i did).  But, depending on how
> > many disks are attached on the machine, the device file used for the
> > softraid device may have not be included among those you have manually
> > created.
> > 
> > In my case, i created sd0, sd1, and sd2.  The first two were the chunks
> > for the softraid, and sd2 was (or so i thought) for the softraid itself.
> > But sd2 was actually an extra disk i forgot about; and there was also
> > the installation media as sd3; making sd4 the softraid device.  At the
> > time of zeroing its MBR, the device was not configured, which made dd(1)
> > fail; and the MAKEDEV command was past the console screen for me to
> > figure out i had not created it.  It took me almost an hour to figure
> > this out.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Lucas de Sena
> > 
> > diff /usr/share/doc/www
> > path + /usr/share/doc/www
> > commit - cc2b58cd232efe0f10a698cf8a92796f9690d4b2
> > blob - cacdc0ceff609c0264bf5e8695023d705bd8d414
> > file + faq/faq14.html
> > --- faq/faq14.html
> > +++ faq/faq14.html
> > @@ -615,7 +615,9 @@ a master boot record and disklabel, zeroing the first 
> >  highly recommended.
> >  Be <b>very careful</b> with this command; issuing it on the wrong device
> >  could lead to a very bad day.
> > -This assumes that the new softraid device was created as <code>sd2</code>.
> > +This assumes that the new softraid device was created as <code>sd2</code>,
> > +and the special file for <code>sd2</code> have been created by
> > +<a href="https://man.openbsd.org/MAKEDEV">MAKEDEV(8)</a>.
> >  
> >  <pre class="cmdbox">
> >  # <b>dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd2c bs=1m count=1</b>

I don't see how this helps. This specifically talks about sd2 which
_is_ created by the instructions above. If somebody is running into
problems because they're trying to follow instructions on autopilot
and don't understand about adapting to having sd3, etc, telling them
about MAKEDEV again is unlikely to help.

Maybe something like this?

Index: faq14.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/www/faq/faq14.html,v
diff -u -p -r1.409 faq14.html
--- faq14.html	19 May 2026 11:36:16 -0000	1.409
+++ faq14.html	27 Jul 2026 12:39:11 -0000
@@ -548,7 +548,9 @@ Welcome to the OpenBSD/amd64 7.9 install
 The installer would now have full support for the <code>sd0</code>,
 <code>sd1</code> and <code>sd2</code> devices.
 If the <a href="faq4.html#FilesNeeded">sets</a> are to be installed from
-a USB drive, don't forget to take that device into account too.
+a USB drive, don't forget to take that device into account too -
+you will need to create the device node for at least <code>sd3</code>,
+and possibly others.
 
 <p>
 Next, initialize the disks with
@@ -602,7 +604,10 @@ sd2 at scsibus2 targ 0 lun 0: &lt;OPENBS
 sd2: 10244MB, 512 bytes/sec, 20980362 sec total
 </pre>
 
-This shows that we now have a new SCSI bus and a new disk, <code>sd2</code>.
+This shows that we now have a new SCSI bus and a new disk - in this case
+<code>sd2</code>.
+If you have additional disk devices, the new disk will be <code>sd3</code>
+or higher, and following commands will need to be adapted.
 This volume will be automatically detected and assembled when the system boots.
 
 <p>