Dear Nick,
dear Otto
Many thanks for your tips! I have tried these steps before asking for
help, but without success.
Then, on reading your mails, it occurred to me I could try one of the
back USB ports of my PC instead of the front ones. And bingo, the USB
stick appeared as 'sd3' in the disk selection dialogue of the step
"Let's install the sets!" :)
On selecting the distribution sets, there is a hint about the missing
'SHA256.sig' file, which makes sense. But I have verified the
downloaded 'install75.img' file as well as compared the SHA256 sum of
the USB stick with the SHA256 sum of the 'install75.img' file. So it is
safe to continue without verification. Correct?
Again, many thanks!
Best regards
Rolf
Am 2024-06-08 09:57, schrieb Otto Moerbeek:
On Fri, Jun 07, 2024 at 07:05:49PM -0400, Nick Holland wrote:
On 6/7/24 18:26, rfab...@mhsmail.ch wrote:
> Edit: I have just found in Michael W. Lucas' "OpenBSD Mastery:
> Filesystems" that "the rd recovery disk image is the OpenBSD install
> environment", not the USB stick. But my question (see below) remains the
> same.
>
> Am 2024-06-07 23:21, schrieb rfab...@mhsmail.ch:
> Dear community
>
> I have copied the 'install75.img' to a USB stick, booted from it and
> chosen the "(I)nstall" option. My intention is to install the
> distribution sets from the stick, and not via http, because I'd like to
> install OpenBSD on our 4 home office PCs without downloading the sets 4
well...OpenBSD is small, and bandwidth is cheap/free. But yeah, I was
"recycling" back when it was called being "a cheap bastard", I get it.
> Escaping to a shell and entering 'sysctl hw.disknames' shows: 'sd0, sd1,
> sd2, rd0'. 'sdX' are the 3 internal SSDs. Am I right in assuming that
> 'rd0' is the USB stick?
as you have discovered...no.
> Installation step "Let's install the sets!":
> I have chosen the option to install from a local disk partition, and
> answered with "partition not mounted".
correct.
> Issue:
> The installer shows 'sd0 sd1 sd2' as available disks, but not the USB
> stick 'rd0'.
also correct. Besides, rd0 is mounted. But it is also wrong.
> Question:
> What do I have to do to make the USB installation stick available for
> accessing the distribution sets? Concerning 'install75.img', the
> "Installation notes" say: "An install or upgrade can be done with a
> USB key without network connectivity."
> But how?
dmesg|grep sd
will show you what all the devices are, pick your USB drive. It will
guess
correctly after that.
Or press ? at the right prompt and the installer will show you the
disk details so you can pick the right one.
-Otto
> Installing the sets via http works without any issues, but that's not
> my plan for the remaining and future installations.
But here's an easier way, if you understand a bit of what is going on.
The system booted from bsd.rd, and it has utilities in "rd0". At this
point, it is NOT ACTUALLY USING the USB drive. So...you can now
unplug
and plug it back in...and you will get some white on blue text telling
you what device was unplugged and what was plugged in.
Of course, you don't really want to do that if you don't know for
sure that the drive is unused, but if things are as you describe it,
it's safe.
But most likely, it's sd2, because USB devices are enumerated AFTER
IDE/SATA/SCSI/SAS/RAID connected drives. (but there are things that
can happen that keep me saying, "most likely" and "here's how you
find out" rather than just assuming sd2. :) )
Nick.