How do I skip format on some partitions in a fresh install?

[Quaxo]

Hello!

Im about to upgrade my server to OpenBSD 4.3 and I have something I must understand before I start...

How do I save partitions ("/backup" and "/home") from being formatted in the install procedure? As far as I can see in http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#Disks you will always end up formatting ALL partitions in the last step.

The only idea I have for a solution is to type "!" for a command prompt and format the non /backup and /home partitions manually (dunno what to type to do it though). Then just continue with the installation (skipping the format step ofcourse). But if I can skip doing this manually I would be more then happy.


Take care
/Quaxo

[jggimi]

The only partition that has a mandatory format is "a". To avoid formatting other partitions, do not assign a mount point to them.

After the installation has completed, you may edit /etc/fstab manually. You can do this from within the ramdisk kernel after the script completes, if you wish. Your "a" partition will be mounted in /mnt, and all other mount points mounted within. So:

# /mnt/usr/sbin/chroot /mnt /bin/ksh
# env TERM=vt220 vi /etc/fstab
# exit
# reboot

Or you can edit /etc/fstab after booting your new system.

[Quaxo]

Originally Posted by jggimi

The only partition that has a mandatory format is "a". To avoid formatting other partitions, do not assign a mount point to them.

Ok, so you mean that i just type 'none' on those mount points not to be formatted at the step shown below?

((the following is the example from http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#Disks))
Mount point for wd0d (size=128520k)? (or 'none' or 'done') [/tmp] Enter
Mount point for wd0e (size=83160k)? (or 'none' or 'done') [/var] Enter
Mount point for wd0g (size=6297480k)? (or 'none' or 'done') [/usr] Enter
Mount point for wd0h (size=4195800k)? (or 'none' or 'done') [/home] Enter
Mount point for wd0d (size=128520k)? (or 'none' or 'done') [/tmp] done
No more disks to initialize.

[jggimi]

Correct. In this case, you would want to select "none" for /home.

[Quaxo]

I see. Thank you very much!

/Quaxo

[jggimi]

Depending on how many releases back your OS is, and how complicated your environment is, you might find conducting upgrades easier than a new installation.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by jggimi

Depending on how many releases back your OS is, and how complicated your environment is, you might find conducting upgrades easier than a new installation.

Wholeheartedly agreed.

Note, however, that upgrades have to be done sequentially. eg. An OpenBSD 4.0 system still has to be upgraded to 4.1 first, followed by upgrading to 4.2, & finally upgrading to 4.3. Skipping intermediate versions is not supported.

[BSDfan666]

It should also be noted that upgrading leaves previously installed libraries, for instance, if you did as ocicat said, each major revision of libc would remain in /usr/lib..

Sometimes I might do a upgrade, but only once.. going from 4.0->4.1->4.2->4.3 is bound to leave a mess. (albeit a little one..), and if you properly setup disklabels it's often easier to perform a re-installation.

[Quaxo]

Its only from 4.2 to 4.3 so an upgrade is possible. However, I want to make a complete install for 2 reasons...

1) v4.3 supports my new hardware much better then v4.2 did, so I can hopefully remove an old network card and get a much better working SATA. For this reason I have the feeling its better to make a complete reinstall to really know whats working or not.

2) I want to see how its working using a full install together with two custom scripts. One script that prepares the new install by backing up files etc., and one that sets everything up again with new packages and so on. I dont know how I should backup users yet though, thats something im working on right now.

[jggimi]

Heh. I have a server where I've been upgrading continuously since 3.6. It uses RAIDframe with root-on-RAID, so a fresh install has never once been considered.

My systems are all -current, so I either upgrade from snapshot to snapshot, or rebuild, depending on the system.