DISKSETUP(8) BSD System Manager's Manual DISKSETUP(8)NAMEdisksetup - setup and label disk drives
SYNOPSISdisksetup-i [-DEFKPns] [-I] [-II] [-A bootany] [-M memsize] [disk]
disksetup [-NW] disk
disksetup [-DKs] [-I] [-II] disk
disksetup-R [-DKns] [-I] [-II] disk proto-file [xxboot bootxx [mboot]]
disksetup-e [-DKns] [-I] [-II] [disk [xxboot bootxx [mboot]]]
disksetup-B disk [xxboot bootxx [mboot]]
DESCRIPTION
The disksetup program is used to examine and alter the various disk la-
bels on a disk drive specified by disk. If disk is indicated as optional,
disksetup will either assume the only hard drive on the system is the
target, or, if there is more than one drive, prompt for which drive
should be used.
The disksetup utility can be called in a variety of ways. After a short
description of the six major ways disksetup may be called, a combined
list of options will be presented.
Method 1 -- Interactive mode
When the -i flag is specified, disksetup will interactively setup the
disk. See the section below on interactive setup.
Method 2 -- Mark disk writable/not writable
Normally the second sector the disk (or BSD/OS FDISK partition) contains
the BSD/OS disk label and is not writable. Using disksetup with the -W
or -N flag makes this sector writable/not writable. When disksetup needs
to write the BSD/OS disk label, it automatically enables the ability to
write it.
Method 3 -- Displaying existing labels
In this mode, disksetup outputs the existing label in ASCII, suitable for
use as a proto-file.
Method 4 -- Restoring disk label
When the -R flag is specified, disksetup will restore the label from the
file specified by proto-file, which is usually generated using Method 3
(above). See the section below on installing boot blocks for information
on the other optional arguments.
Method 5 -- Editing disk label
When the -e flag is specified, a temporary ASCII version of the disklabel
is created and an editor (either the contents of the EDITOR environment
variable or vi(1)) is invoked on that file. After exiting the editor,
disksetup will label the disk the with altered label. See the section
below on installing boot blocks for information on the other optional ar-
guments.
Method 6 -- Install boot blocks.
When the -B flag is specified, disksetup will only install boot blocks,
and possibly a Master Boot Record (MBR). An MBR is only needed when the
disk is set up for co-residency using the DOS style FDISK table. The
xxboot and bootxx arguments specify the primary and secondary bootstraps.
The bootstraps are normally found in /usr/bootstraps. If the primary and
secondary bootstraps are not specified, disksetup will prompt for the
type of bootstrap to install. The mboot argument is used to specify a
new MBR. The standard MBR used by BSD/OS is bootany.sys. If an FDISK
table exists and mboot is not specified, disksetup will prompt for the
file containing the MBR, with the option to keep the existing MBR. If
bootany.sys is chosen as the MBR, the bootany(8) program will be run to
install and initialize the MBR.
Flags and Options
-A bootany Use bootany as the path to the program to install
bootany.sys.
-D Only read the on disk label.
-E Expert mode. Turn off some consistency checks, such as par-
tition overlap, partition length, etc. Allow specification
of the FDISK geometry. Only useful with the -i flag.
-F Edit the FDISK table. Implies the -i flag.
-I Ignore the on-disk BSD/OS disk label. Also causes the device
to be open non-blocking.
-II In addition to the the effects of the -I flag, ignore any
FDISK table on the disk.
-K Only read the kernel's (in-core) disk label.
-M memsize In interactive mode, the amount of memory in the system is
used to help determine the size of some partitions. When -M
is supplied, memsize (specified in megabytes) will be used
instead of the actual size of memory.
-N Disable writes to the BSD/OS label sector.
-P Edit the BSD/OS partition table. Implies the -i flag.
-Q Do not ask any questions when using the express setup.
-S Express mode setup. Used by the installation scripts.
-Z dossize When using express setup. reserve dossize MB of disk space
for DOS. A value of 0 (zero) implies no DOS partition.
-W Enable writes to the BSD/OS label sector.
-n Do not write any output to the disk.
-p xxboot Use xxboot as the primary bootstrap. Used by express setup.
-q bootxx Use bootxx as the secondary bootstrap. Used by express set-
up.
-s Write only the kernel's in-core label.
-t path Use by the installation script to specify a file prefix for
storing filesystem information. This information is used by
the installation script to generate fstab(5) entries.
Although disksetup attempts to be self explanatory (via prompts and help
screens), it is useful to understand the basics of how the interactive
mode works and the goals for configuring disks.
The disksetup utility will present a series of questions, with a default
or recommended response enclosed in brackets [like this]. To use the de-
fault response, simply press the <Enter> key. If you enter an invalid
response, disksetup will prompt you again until a valid response is re-
ceived.
When requesting information about the geometry, or when editing FDISK and
BSD/OS partition tables, disksetup uses a full screen display/edit mode.
Use the <Tab> key to change fields. Generally the <Esc> key will cancel
the current changes. When editing the partition tables, the ? key may be
pressed for context sensitive help. You may want to read through these
help screens as they contain valuable tips on using disksetup.
FILES
/etc/disktab
/usr/bootstraps/xxboot
/usr/bootstraps/bootxx
/usr/bootstraps/bootany.sys
SEE ALSOdisktab(5), disklabel(5)BSDI BSD/OS January 30, 1995 3
