In message <http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=123814815123816&w=1>, Hagen Volpers writes [[about having two completely separate OpenBSD installs on the same disk, one with wd0a as the root partition, another with wd0d]] > Ok, tried it, but disklabel always want to use wd0a as root-partition. That's > what disklabel(8) says: > > "By convention, the `a' partition of the boot disk is the root > partition, and the `b' partition of the boot disk is the swap partition, > but all other letters can be used in any order for any other partitions > as desired." > > How did you do the install? > > Another problem is the bootloader. AFAIK you can only define the hd and > fdisk-partition, not the disklabel-partition to boot from. > > Could you please give me some more informations about your setup?
I've been using this setup since OpenBSD 2.8, and have described it in several past messages on this mailing list, eg http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=109387301017685&w=1 http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=111660707610980&w=1 http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=121155589425574&w=1 http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=121171690121393&w=1 The answer to your specific question can be found in http://monkey.org/openbsd/archive/misc/0410/msg03014.html # - get familiar with ed(1) # - from the install disk, shell out before the install # - ed install.sub # - jump to last-but-one line, edit to read: ROOTDEV=${ROOTDISK}d, :wq # - ./install.sh In other words, at the "boot, install, or shell" prompt, say "shell" and then ed install.sub $-1 (go to the 2nd-to-last-line) s/a/d/ (change the 'a' to a 'd') w (write the memory buffer back to the file) q (quit the ed editor) (maybe follow with 'more install.sub' to confirm that all went well) OpenBSD will how happily install with root on the wd0d partition. Important: Don't try this unless you know what you're doing! Playing around with partitions this way works fine if you do things correctly, but mistakes can easily scramble your disk (more accurately, the data on it). In particular, don't try this until you grok the FMs disklabel(8), fstab(5), and installboot(8/`arch`. ciao, -- -- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" <jth...@astro.indiana-zebra.edu> Dept of Astronomy, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam
