On Jan 30, 2008 9:35 AM, Stefan Kell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Raimo Niskanen wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 10:31:28PM -0500, Richard Daemon wrote: > >> ... > >>> > >>> But of course you have "boot -a" at the boot prompt for selecting the > root > >>> device. And I want to try the same the next days :-) > >>> > >>> Regards > >>> > >>> Stefan Kell > >>> > >> > >> That brings up another question, hopefully there's an answer... rather > than > >> having to do boot -a (even from boot.conf) and be present to hit > <enter> > >> during root device selection, is there an easy way to tell it, yes, > choose > >> the default it sees after this? > >> > > > > Not that I am certain it would solve your problem completely, > > but I would love having a boot(8) prompt command > > boot [image [root] [-acds]] > > and > > set root [value] > > It would then also be possible to set it in /etc/boot.conf. > > > > But as far as I know it is a missing feature. And I > > do not think the kernel is able to get root device > > as an argument (yet). > > > > Another not as good and still missing feature would be > > to be able to set root device from boot_config(8). > > > > > > > >> ie: if I do a full install on a USB flash, boot up normal, it panics > into > >> ddb> mode because of root device as wd0 when it should be sd0. If I do > boot > >> -a, it asks for default of sd0 rather than wd0 but expects manual > >> intervention, such as pressing <enter>. Is there a way to bypass this > other > >> than recompile a new, custom kernel? > >> > > The Generic kernel on i386 tries hard to find the correct boot device and > assumes the the rootfilesystem is on partition "a" on this device. So if > your kernel and boot files are on the USB-stick, the kernel should not > panic but use sd0a as rootfilesystem. > > Regards > > Stefan Kell > > That's what I tried as a test, installed 4.2-RELEASE (even 4.2-STABLE via release(8)) and previous versions, all using GENERIC kernel.
As a test, I install OpenBSD onto the USB Flash, using the whole device (sd0a) as /. Set the BIOS to boot off of USB, the install completes ok, then after the initial reboot, during bootup, it panics into ddb> mode and a few lines above, it shows "root device on wd0a" rather than sd0a. When I do a boot -a, it detects the proper root device and works ok this way, but of course requires the manual intervention of having to press <enter> or to be physically at the console. I've tried with boot sd0a:/bsd, boot hd0a:/bsd, etc. still no luck unless I do a boot -a. Is there a way to save the dmesg once in ddb> to a file on floppy or USB? On this system, I have OpenBSD running on a HD as well - and the other weird thing I noticed is that when I boot -a in order to properly boot off of the USB device, it sees it's own dmesg and a pre-pended dmesg of the OpenBSD install on the local HDD. Is the problem some how inter-related with already having an install on a local drive, on the same system?
