Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Hi! On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 05:17:35PM +0100, Antoine Jacoutot wrote: >On Wed, 7 Nov 2007, Nick Holland wrote: >>Really. /altroot is useful for certain things, but ONLY certain >>things. Don't call it a backup, as it isn't rotated. You have >I do backup everything. >It's just that altroot is so easy to get a file you erased by mistake. >rm /etc/myfile... err fuck... mount /altroot && cp blah... well you see >;) >It is good for my lazyness but I'm definitaly not using this for >backup ;) rsnapshot (or similar programs) to a separate dir/fs from cron does the same, and can keep several "generations" in a relatively efficient way, w/o filesystem consistency problems. Kind regards, Hannah.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On Wed, 7 Nov 2007, Nick Holland wrote: Really. /altroot is useful for certain things, but ONLY certain things. Don't call it a backup, as it isn't rotated. You have I do backup everything. It's just that altroot is so easy to get a file you erased by mistake. rm /etc/myfile... err fuck... mount /altroot && cp blah... well you see ;) It is good for my lazyness but I'm definitaly not using this for backup ;) -- Antoine
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
* Nick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-11-07 04:22]: > (add to that that Thunderbird is a brain-dead piece of shit when it > comes to handling diffs in general and classic diffs even more so. > Apparently, either Thunderbird devs aren't programmers or they never > show their diffs to each other.) or they don't use thunderbird :) -- Henning Brauer, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] BS Web Services, http://bsws.de Full-Service ISP - Secure Hosting, Mail and DNS Services Dedicated Servers, Rootservers, Application Hosting - Hamburg & Amsterdam
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Antoine Jacoutot wrote: > On Tue, 6 Nov 2007, Nick Holland wrote: >> what benefit do you see in having /altroot on the same disk as / ? > > See the thread "Regenerating damaged /etc" ;) > see /var/backup. :) Really. /altroot is useful for certain things, but ONLY certain things. Don't call it a backup, as it isn't rotated. You have less than 24 hours to actually decide "oh, I screwed up!" and get your data back. It generates an unclean file system, and the cleanup of that file system leaves strange looking error messages in your daily report. AND on a single disk, it is blatantly not bootable -- the pbr tries to pull /boot from 'a', where it was installed to. That's why the ROOTBACKUP process uses 'dd', to make sure the file system is IDENTICAL in layout. And / is hardly the only place where important files reside. Here's a script I've used: /etc $ more daily.local #!/bin/sh PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin TGZFILE=/backup/`date "+backup%Y-%m-%d"`.tgz cd / tar czf $TGZFILE etc var ls -l $TGZFILE # Verify it worked. # Restore to second drive. Delete if no second drive. mount /dev/wd1a /mnt # second drive root mount /dev/wd1f /mnt/var # second drive /var cd /mnt tar xzpf $TGZFILE cd / umount /mnt/var umount /mnt if you /backup is "finite", you will need a purge step in there, but in the system I implemented this in looked like it could go ten or more years before filling /backup. :) yes, this restores /etc just before the ROOTBACKUP process overwrites it, but this is just a couple seconds of wasted effort. Nick.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Jan Stary wrote: ... > See at bottom; looks much simpler now, hmm :-) > I leave the RAID analogy to someone else. > > Anyway, first diff, screwed up, I'd prefer the term, "learning experience". > thanks for all the comments. > > Jan > > > Index: faq4.html > === > RCS file: /cvs/www/faq/faq4.html,v > retrieving revision 1.254 > diff -u -p -r1.254 faq4.html > --- faq4.html 3 Nov 2007 13:51:09 - 1.254 > +++ faq4.html 7 Nov 2007 07:31:13 - > @@ -1915,6 +1915,13 @@ Some additional thoughts on partitioning > can use quotas to restrict the space > they use, and if they fill the partition, no other parts of your > system will be impacted. > + If you have a second disk, you might want to create an /altroot > + partition on it, as described in > +href="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=daily&sektion=8";>daily(8). > + This can be used for daily backups of your / partition, > + giving you a possibility to recover should your 'a' partition go away. > + Obviously, the /altroot partition needs to be at least as big > + as /. > and what I just committed: Index: faq4.html === RCS file: /cvs/www/faq/faq4.html,v retrieving revision 1.254 diff -u -r1.254 faq4.html --- faq4.html 3 Nov 2007 13:51:09 - 1.254 +++ faq4.html 7 Nov 2007 12:01:01 - @@ -1915,6 +1915,20 @@ can use quotas to restrict the space they use, and if they fill the partition, no other parts of your system will be impacted. + If you have a second disk, you might want to create an /altroot + partition on it, as described in + http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=daily&sektion=8";>daily(8). + This can be used for daily backups of your / partition, + giving you a possibility to recover should your 'a' partition go away. + Obviously, the /altroot partition needs to be at least as big + as /. + If you have something else duplicating the rest of your disk, either + software + http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=raid&sektion=4";>raid(4) + or a periodic copy using + http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=dump&sektion=8";>dump(8)/http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=restore&sektion=8";>restore(8), + this disk can be bootable after the removal of the primary disk.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Hi all, finally, a comment from someone who has a say in that. > > this is a diff to faq4.html (the install faq) so that it mentions > > /altroot for the installing user before he partitions his drive. Now, > > the altroot feature is described in daily(8), which you only read when > > you already have a system installed, your disk is already partitioned, > > and typically you don't have the spare partition (of size at least that > > of /) to use for /altroot. > > what benefit do you see in having /altroot on the same disk as / ? Silly me, I will use two disks. OTOH, daily(8) itself gives an example using wd0j. > > Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes > > the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but > > 20G disks don't really exist anymore. > > Bullshit. > No functional 10G drive that passes past me hits a trash can. > No functional 4G narrow SCSI drive that passes me hits a trash can > either. > (1G drives are starting to get a bit nervous around here, however) > > There are a lot of people who do their first installs (which is what > the FAQ is pointed at) on very minimal hardware. 20G is actually much > bigger than many people still use, and loads bigger than many non-i386/ > amd64 systems usually have on them. > > So, no, the 80g change is just showing off. No way. At least, not > until someone floods me with 80G, 120G, 250G and bigger drives enough > that I think everyone must have big disks. :) All right. I am well aware that obsd is totaly usable at much smaller disks; heck, my home router run off 1G for five ears, until it got 2G this summer; and yes, I know people who run hapilly off a 521M card. Somehow I got into thinking that these are borderline cases, and the FAQ example should use something more "typical". Sorry for that confusion. > argh. I don't suppose you noticed that OpenBSD developers only use > diff -u, right? Or actually looked at the output to see why? OK, lesson learned. Sorry. (First diff I sent.) > Anyway... > * your diff makes gratuitous and pointless changes. > * Those changes will be a pain in the butt for me to maintain, as I > don't have your machine. > * It doesn't say a word about the point of the diff (/altroot), > just silently adds a partition to the install without explanation. Not true: my single point was that /altroot is at least _mentioned_ in the install FAQ (with a link to daily(8) which explains it), so the installing user knows that there is such a feature at all - and can consider that when partitioning. > * It puts the /altroot partition in a nearly pointless place. Namely, same disk. Still, your wd0a can die, and you can boot from wd0j (says daily(8)). But I agree that putting /altroot an a different disk makes much more sense. > * 40G home? Only if I had a deliberate plan for why I needed that > much. Of the dozens of machines I have around here, the only one > that has a /home that big is my NFS server... I chalk it up to using the overly big drive in the example. > An /altroot discussion in the FAQ would be appropriate, but it would > not be handled anything like this. It wouldn't be a change to the > install example, it would be in section 4.7, and possibly in a RAID > discussion somewhere in faq14.html. > > /altroot is very cool, but like RAID, it does what it does, not what > people dream of it doing. I don't think it is in any way an > "automatic" thing that all users should be doing. I suspect you are > thinking it will help you if you blow out your 'a' partition. Yes, I thought this is the whole point of /altroot: a partition you can boot from, an "alternate root". As in '> boot hd1a:/bsd'. > About the only thing it can do for you if you have only > one disk is give you a less-than-a-day-old copy of your config files > should you do something you regret and catch it soon enough. > If this is your concern, a better idea would be to tar(1) up your /etc > and maybe /var files, and stick them in a dated file name, and put them > in a partition that is only mounted for the backup process. Doing > this, you can get probably a few MONTHS of past configs for a firewall > or DNS server in a partition the size you made for /altroot. Yes, and I of course do that via trivial "tar /etc" script (backups go over NFS, though). But from these backups you cannot boot, which I thought /altroot was about. > Where altroot comes in handy is when you have a pair of disks in an > already redundant machine (i.e., firewall or DNS server). I did this > for some systems: > wd0: 6G > wd1: 20G or 40G > wd1 had the same partition layout as wd0, 'cept it also had a big > partition mounted as /bkup. > Every night, /etc/daily duped / to /altroot (on wd1), and > /etc/daily.local made a dated .tgz file of everything in /var and /etc > and put it in /bkup. /etc/weekly.local used dump or rsync to copy > the rest of the partitions from wd0 to wd1. If wd1 blows out, there > is
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On Tue, 6 Nov 2007, Nick Holland wrote: what benefit do you see in having /altroot on the same disk as / ? See the thread "Regenerating damaged /etc" ;) -- Antoine
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 01:23:55PM +1100, RW wrote: > On Tue, 6 Nov 2007 18:26:04 -0500, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: > > > > >Perhaps there needs to be a new fork: OldBSD: Unix for the Ages. > > s/Ages/Aged/ ?? > > Given that I joined IBM in 1962, I am allowed to make such jokes. > ~|^ > = Ha! When I was -4. -- I figure that assuming memory isn't too great a concern, the GENERIC kernel is fine. OldBSD would then just be a custom install set that consisted of the minium base ones minus stuff. The normal installer and everything would work. Being that there would be no coding involved, there shouldn't be any security reprecusions. Doug.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Jan Stary wrote: > Hi all, > > this is a diff to faq4.html (the install faq) so that it mentions > /altroot for the installing user before he partitions his drive. Now, > the altroot feature is described in daily(8), which you only read when > you already have a system installed, your disk is already partitioned, > and typically you don't have the spare partition (of size at least that > of /) to use for /altroot. what benefit do you see in having /altroot on the same disk as / ? > The current partitioning example uses a 20G disk with a pre-existing > 1.5G windows partition. In the diff I use a 80G disk with a pre-existing > 6G windows partition. I believe these are more realistic numbers > nowadays (also, I don't have a 20G disk around :-). The 6G figure is > used to stay below 8G, which INSTALL.i386 mentions as possible BIOS > limit. I suppose the current example uses a 1.5G win partition to stay > below 2G (which might be a BIOS limit on even older hardware) - is it so? eh, kinda. The bigger reason was I wanted most of the disk for OpenBSD, and only wanted the 1.5G as a token Windows partition for the sake of example. You see, at the time I wrote this and committed this disk and this computer to OpenBSD, it was a pretty cool system. PII-450, 20G disk, physically tiny machine, relatively low power consumption. Highly desirable. Still, for all that space, the idea of wasting any of it on a Windows partition that would never be used was completely uninteresting. Yes, five years after the machine was devoted to OpenBSD (and in fact, this article in the FAQ), it's pretty unexciting, I'll grant you. > Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes > the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but > 20G disks don't really exist anymore. Bullshit. No functional 10G drive that passes past me hits a trash can. No functional 4G narrow SCSI drive that passes me hits a trash can either. (1G drives are starting to get a bit nervous around here, however) There are a lot of people who do their first installs (which is what the FAQ is pointed at) on very minimal hardware. 20G is actually much bigger than many people still use, and loads bigger than many non-i386/ amd64 systems usually have on them. So, no, the 80g change is just showing off. No way. At least, not until someone floods me with 80G, 120G, 250G and bigger drives enough that I think everyone must have big disks. :) > Also, some disklabel messages and the output of disklabel's 'p' command > have changed (either that, or the current faq which shows sizes in > sectors as an output of 'p m' is mistaken). > > Jan > > > PS: As this is a small diff, I edited (my copy of) faq4.html manually; > but if I was to write up something bigger - is there some script(1)-like > log of the whole installation, or can I create one? Drop into shell at > the very beginning, and run 'install' inside script(1), or pipe it > through tee, neither of which exists in bsd.rd? Or do something just > before halt-and-reboot? Thanks. I do the install for faq4.html every release with a serial cable attached, and tip(1) running inside script(1). argh. I don't suppose you noticed that OpenBSD developers only use diff -u, right? Or actually looked at the output to see why? (add to that that Thunderbird is a brain-dead piece of shit when it comes to handling diffs in general and classic diffs even more so. Apparently, either Thunderbird devs aren't programmers or they never show their diffs to each other.) Anyway... * your diff makes gratuitous and pointless changes. * Those changes will be a pain in the butt for me to maintain, as I don't have your machine. * It doesn't say a word about the point of the diff (/altroot), just silently adds a partition to the install without explanation. * It puts the /altroot partition in a nearly pointless place. * 40G home? Only if I had a deliberate plan for why I needed that much. Of the dozens of machines I have around here, the only one that has a /home that big is my NFS server... I may sound overly critical, but let me say in no uncertain terms: you had an idea, you implemented it. That puts you *above* 95% of the rest of the people who "help" around here. So for that I commend you. So, while my response may not be overly positive sounding, it is worth my time, I think, to tell you in some detail why. So, take it as constructive criticism (or constructive "no way" :) An /altroot discussion in the FAQ would be appropriate, but it would not be handled anything like this. It wouldn't be a change to the install example, it would be in section 4.7, and possibly in a RAID discussion somewhere in faq14.html. /altroot is very cool, but like RAID, it does what it does, not what people dream of it doing. I don't think it is in any way an "automatic" thing that all users should be doing. I suspect you are thinking it will help you if you blow out your 'a' partition. Ho
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On Tue, 6 Nov 2007 18:26:04 -0500, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: > >Perhaps there needs to be a new fork: OldBSD: Unix for the Ages. s/Ages/Aged/ ?? Given that I joined IBM in 1962, I am allowed to make such jokes. ~|^ = >From the land "down under": Australia. Do we look from up over?
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 08:11:55PM +0100, ropers wrote: > On 06/11/2007, Jan Stary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes > > the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but > > 20G disks don't really exist anymore. > > > O RLY? > > > I always thought my 20 Gig HDD was the largest of my eight drives. > Are you saying it's Schroedinger's hard drive? > > What about the others? > My 200 MB would like to have a little word with you, and it doesn't > look like it's particularly amused. I have a 171 MB drive. My older computers don't have USB or CD to boot from, so I keep this as sort of a plug-in LiveIDE. The only OS I found that could fit on it is Debian Woody. I haven't tried tweaking NetBSD to fit. Perhaps there needs to be a new fork: OldBSD: Unix for the Ages. It actually wouldn't have to be a total fork, just OpenBSD Release with stuff removed. No sound, no wireless, ISA and basic PCI, IDE (no SATA if it takes more room), OK for USB. Just the basics for boxes that are getting hard to fit the regular OS on. Doug.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
> > 20G disks don't really exist anymore. > > >O RLY? > > > I always thought my 20 Gig HDD was the largest of my eight drives. > Are you saying it's Schroedinger's hard drive? > > What about the others? > My 200 MB would like to have a little word with you, and it doesn't > look like it's particularly amused. > H /me thinks time has arrived to get my old Apple ][c from the locker and start an Apple2BSD Project... Let's see what can be done with 128kb of RAM, 8-bit 6502 processor and no HDD. > Also, let's remember that old computers NEVER end up in the so-called > "developing world". People there would NEVER use old computers, right? /me lives in the so-called "developing world". Never knew anyone who have bought an old computer from the so called "1st world" and set up a desktop machine or even a production server... People here who are crazy enough to install OpenBSD on a very, very old computer are more perfectly able to do this talk... Otherwise, they would have upgraded their Win9X to WinXP by financing a new system. > Let them buy new ones! Oh, and let them eat cake, too. > That's great!!! I love cakes!
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On 06/11/2007, Jan Stary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > PS: As this is a small diff, I edited (my copy of) faq4.html manually; > but if I was to write up something bigger - is there some script(1)-like > log of the whole installation, or can I create one? Drop into shell at > the very beginning, and run 'install' inside script(1), or pipe it > through tee, neither of which exists in bsd.rd? Or do something just > before halt-and-reboot? Thanks. I would try to use a serial console, but that's just me.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
On 06/11/2007, Jan Stary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes > the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but > 20G disks don't really exist anymore. O RLY? I always thought my 20 Gig HDD was the largest of my eight drives. Are you saying it's Schroedinger's hard drive? What about the others? My 200 MB would like to have a little word with you, and it doesn't look like it's particularly amused. Also, let's remember that old computers NEVER end up in the so-called "developing world". People there would NEVER use old computers, right? Let them buy new ones! Oh, and let them eat cake, too.
Re: altroot is not mentioned in FAQ [diff]
Hi all, this is a diff to faq4.html (the install faq) so that it mentions /altroot for the installing user before he partitions his drive. Now, the altroot feature is described in daily(8), which you only read when you already have a system installed, your disk is already partitioned, and typically you don't have the spare partition (of size at least that of /) to use for /altroot. The current partitioning example uses a 20G disk with a pre-existing 1.5G windows partition. In the diff I use a 80G disk with a pre-existing 6G windows partition. I believe these are more realistic numbers nowadays (also, I don't have a 20G disk around :-). The 6G figure is used to stay below 8G, which INSTALL.i386 mentions as possible BIOS limit. I suppose the current example uses a 1.5G win partition to stay below 2G (which might be a BIOS limit on even older hardware) - is it so? Is using a larger disk in the example a problem? Using a 20G disk makes the point of showing how usable the system is even on a small disk, but 20G disks don't really exist anymore. Also, some disklabel messages and the output of disklabel's 'p' command have changed (either that, or the current faq which shows sizes in sectors as an output of 'p m' is mistaken). Jan PS: As this is a small diff, I edited (my copy of) faq4.html manually; but if I was to write up something bigger - is there some script(1)-like log of the whole installation, or can I create one? Drop into shell at the very beginning, and run 'install' inside script(1), or pipe it through tee, neither of which exists in bsd.rd? Or do something just before halt-and-reboot? Thanks. Index: faq4.html === RCS file: /cvs/www/faq/faq4.html,v retrieving revision 1.254 diff -r1.254 faq4.html 773c773 < Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors] --- > Disk: wd0 geometry: 9729/255/63 [156301488 Sectors] 778c778 < *0: 0B0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 3069297 ] Win95 FAT-32 --- > *0: 0B0 1 1 - 764 254 63 [ 63:12289662 ] Win95 FAT-32 829c829 < Our drive here has a 1.5G partition for Windows 2000 (using the FAT --- > Our drive here has a 6G partition for Windows 2000 (using the FAT 831c831 < that the Windows partition occupies through cylinder 202 on the drive. --- > that the Windows partition occupies through cylinder 764 on the drive. 833,835c833,835 < at cylinder 203. You could also calculate OpenBSD's starting sector of < 3069360 by adding the existing partition's starting sector (63) and its < size (3069297). --- > at cylinder 765. You could also calculate OpenBSD's starting sector of > 12289662 by adding the existing partition's starting sector (63) and its > size (12289662). 854,855c854,855 < BIOS Starting cylinder [0 - 2585]: [0] 203 < BIOS Starting head [0 - 239]: [0] Enter --- > BIOS Starting cylinder [0 - 9728]: [0] 765 > BIOS Starting head [0 - 254]: [0] Enter 857,858c857,858 < BIOS Ending cylinder [0 - 2585]: [0] 2585 < BIOS Ending head [0 - 239]: [0] 239 --- > BIOS Ending cylinder [0 - 9728]: [0] 9728 > BIOS Ending head [0 - 254]: [0] 254 861c861 < Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors] --- > Disk: wd0 geometry: 9729/255/63 [156301488 Sectors] 864c864 <#: idC H S -C H S [ start: size ] --- >#: idC H S -C H S [ start:size ] 866,867c866,867 < *0: 0B0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 3069297 ] Win95 FAT-32 <1: A6 203 0 1 - 2585 239 63 [ 3069360:36030960 ] OpenBSD --- > *0: 0B0 1 1 - 764 254 63 [ 63:12289662 ] Win95 FAT-32 >1: A6 765 0 1 - 9728 254 63 [12289725: 144006660 ] OpenBSD 871c871 < Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [19092 Megabytes] --- > Disk: wd0 geometry: 9729/255/63 [76319 Megabytes] 874c874 <#: idC H S -C H S [ start: size ] --- >#: idC H S -C H S [ start: size ] 876,879c876,879 < *0: 0B0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63:1499M] Win95 FAT-32 <1: A6 203 0 1 - 2585 239 63 [ 3069360: 17593M] OpenBSD <2: 000 0 0 -0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused <3: 000 0 0 -0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused --- > *0: 0B0 1 1 - 764 254 63 [ 63: 6001M] Win95 FAT-32 >1: A6 765 0 1 - 9728 254 63 [12289725: 70316M] OpenBSD >2: 000 0 0 -0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused >3: 000 0 0 -0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused 912c912 < Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors] --- > Disk: wd0 geometry: 9729/255/63 [156301488 Sectors] 915c915 <#: idC H S -C H S [ start: size ] --- >#: idC H S -C H S [ start:size ] 917,918c917,918 <0: 0B0 1 1 - 202 239 6
