On Jan 30, 2008 9:35 AM, Stefan Kell <skba.opbsd@gmx.de> wrote:

quoted text
> 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?