NAME
edahdi —
modify AHDI partition
identifiers
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
edahdi allows you to modify the partition identifiers on a
disk partitioned with AHDI or an AHDI compatible formatter. An AHDI partition
format is usually only present on disks shared between
NetBSD and some other OS. The partition identifiers
are used by
NetBSD as a guideline to emulate a
disklabel on such a disk.
edahdi supports the following options:
-
-
- device
- The name of the raw device you want to edit.
The following partition identifiers are recognized by
NetBSD:
- NBD
- Partition is reserved for NetBSD.
This can be either a root or an user partition. The first NBD partition on
a disk will be mapped to partition a in
NetBSD. The following NBD partitions will be
mapped from d up. The filesystem type is ffs by
default.
- SWP
- The first SWP partition is mapped to partition
b.
- GEM or BGM
- These partitions are mapped from d up.
The filesystem type is msdos.
- NBR
- NetBSD root partition
(deprecated).
- NBU
- NetBSD user partition
(deprecated).
- NBS
- NetBSD swap partition
(deprecated).
EXAMPLES
Say, you have a disk that is partitioned like:
Number |
Id |
1 |
GEM |
2 |
GEM |
3 |
GEM |
4 |
GEM |
This partitioning will show up in
NetBSD as (Number
refers to the first table):
Partition |
Fstype |
Number |
c (whole disk) |
unused |
|
d (user part) |
MSDOS |
1 |
e (user part) |
MSDOS |
2 |
f (user part) |
MSDOS |
3 |
g (user part) |
MSDOS |
4 |
Now you decide to change the id of partition 2 and 3 to NBD. Now
NetBSD will show the partitioning as (Number refers to
the first table):
Partition |
Fstype |
Number |
a (root) |
4.2BSD |
2 |
c (whole disk) |
unused |
|
d (user part) |
MSDOS |
1 |
e (user part) |
4.2BSD |
3 |
f (user part) |
MSDOS |
4 |
You will notice that the order of the partitions has changed! You will have to
watchout for this. It is a consequence of
NetBSD habit
of assigning a predefined meaning to the partitions
a/b and
c.
SEE ALSO
disklabel(8),
installboot(8)
HISTORY
The
edahdi command first appeared in
NetBSD
1.2.
BUGS
The changes made to the AHDI partitions will become active on the next
first open of the device. You are advised to use
edahdi only on a device without any mounted or otherwise
active partitions. This is not enforced by
edahdi. This is
particularly confusing when your change caused partitions to shift, as shown
in the example above.
As soon as a disk contains at least one NBD partition, you are allowed to write
disklabels and install bootstraps.