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GPART(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual GPART(8) NAME gpart -- control utility for the disk partitioning GEOM class SYNOPSIS gpart add -t type [-a alignment] [-b start] [-s size] [-i index] [-l label] [-f flags] geom gpart backup geom gpart bootcode [-b bootcode] [-p partcode -i index] [-f flags] geom gpart commit geom gpart create -s scheme [-n entries] [-f flags] provider gpart delete -i index [-f flags] geom gpart destroy [-F] [-f flags] geom gpart modify -i index [-l label] [-t type] [-f flags] geom gpart recover [-f flags] geom gpart resize -i index [-a alignment] [-s size] [-f flags] geom gpart restore [-lF] [-f flags] provider [...] gpart set -a attrib -i index [-f flags] geom gpart show [-l | -r] [-p] [geom ...] gpart undo geom gpart unset -a attrib -i index [-f flags] geom gpart list gpart status gpart load gpart unload DESCRIPTION The gpart utility is used to partition GEOM providers, normally disks. The first argument is the action to be taken: add Add a new partition to the partitioning scheme given by geom. The partition begins on the logical block address given by the -b start option. Its size is given by the -s size option. SI unit suffixes are allowed. One or both -b and -s options can be omitted. If so they are automatically calculated. The type of the partition is given by the -t type option. Partition types are discussed below in the section entitled PARTITION TYPES. Additional options include: -a alignment If specified, then gpart utility tries to align start offset and partition size to be multiple of alignment value. -i index The index in the partition table at which the new partition is to be placed. The index determines the name of the device special file used to rep- resent the partition. -l label The label attached to the partition. This option is only valid when used on partitioning schemes that support partition labels. -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section entitled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. backup Dump a partition table to standard output in a special format used by the restore action. bootcode Embed bootstrap code into the partitioning scheme's metadata on the geom (using -b bootcode) or write bootstrap code into a partition (using -p partcode and -i index). Not all partition- ing schemes have embedded bootstrap code, so the -b bootcode option is scheme-specific in nature (see the section entitled BOOTSTRAPPING below). The -b bootcode option specifies a file that contains the bootstrap code. The contents and size of the file are determined by the partitioning scheme. The -p partcode option specifies a file that contains the bootstrap code intended to be written to a partition. The partition is specified by the -i index option. The size of the file must be smaller than the size of the partition. Additional options include: -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. commit Commit any pending changes for geom geom. All actions are com- mitted by default and will not result in pending changes. Ac- tions can be modified with the -f flags option so that they are not committed, but become pending. Pending changes are re- flected by the geom and the gpart utility, but they are not ac- tually written to disk. The commit action will write all pend- ing changes to disk. create Create a new partitioning scheme on a provider given by provider. The -s scheme option determines the scheme to use. The kernel must have support for a particular scheme before that scheme can be used to partition a disk. Additional options include: -n entries The number of entries in the partition table. Ev- ery partitioning scheme has a minimum and maximum number of entries. This option allows tables to be created with a number of entries that is within the limits. Some schemes have a maximum equal to the minimum and some schemes have a maximum large enough to be considered unlimited. By default, partition tables are created with the minimum num- ber of entries. -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. delete Delete a partition from geom geom and further identified by the -i index option. The partition cannot be actively used by the kernel. Additional options include: -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. destroy Destroy the partitioning scheme as implemented by geom geom. Additional options include: -F Forced destroying of the partition table even if it is not empty. -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. modify Modify a partition from geom geom and further identified by the -i index option. Only the type and/or label of the partition can be modified. To change the type of a partition, specify the new type with the -t type option. To change the label of a partition, specify the new label with the -l label option. Not all partitioning schemes support labels and it is invalid to try to change a partition label in such cases. Additional options include: -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. recover Recover a corrupt partition's scheme metadata on the geom geom. See the section entitled RECOVERING below for the additional information. Additional options include: -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. resize Resize a partition from geom geom and further identified by the -i index option. New partition size is expressed in logical block numbers and can be given by the -s size option. If -s option is omitted then new size is automatically calculated to maximum available from given geom geom. Additional options include: -a alignment If specified, then gpart utility tries to align partition size to be multiple of alignment value. -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section entitled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. restore Restore the partition table from a backup previously created by the backup action and read from standard input. Only the par- tition table is restored. This action does not affect the con- tent of partitions. After restoring the partition table and writing bootcode if needed, user data must be restored from backup. Additional options include: -F Destroy partition table on the given provider be- fore doing restore. -l Restore partition labels for partitioning schemes that support them. -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. set Set the named attribute on the partition entry. See the sec- tion entitled ATTRIBUTES below for a list of available at- tributes. Additional options include: -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. show Show current partition information for the specified geoms, or all geoms if none are specified. The default output includes the logical starting block of each partition, the partition size in blocks, the partition index number, the partition type, and a human readable partition size. Block sizes and locations are based on the device's Sectorsize as shown by gpart list. Additional options include: -l For partitioning schemes that support partition la- bels, print them instead of partition type. -p Show provider names instead of partition indexes. -r Show raw partition type instead of symbolic name. undo Revert any pending changes for geom geom. This action is the opposite of the commit action and can be used to undo any changes that have not been committed. unset Clear the named attribute on the partition entry. See the sec- tion entitled ATTRIBUTES below for a list of available at- tributes. Additional options include: -f flags Additional operational flags. See the section en- titled OPERATIONAL FLAGS below for a discussion about its use. list See geom(8). status See geom(8). load See geom(8). unload See geom(8). PARTITIONING SCHEMES Several partitioning schemes are supported by the gpart utility: APM Apple Partition Map, used by PowerPC(R) Macintosh(R) computers. Requires the GEOM_PART_APM kernel option. BSD Traditional BSD disklabel, usually used to subdivide MBR parti- tions. (This scheme can also be used as the sole partitioning method, without an MBR. Partition editing tools from other operating systems often do not understand the bare disklabel partition layout, so this is sometimes called "dangerously dedicated".) Requires the GEOM_PART_BSD kernel option. BSD64 64-bit implementation of BSD disklabel used in DragonFlyBSD to subdivide MBR or GPT partitions. Requires the GEOM_PART_BSD64 kernel option. LDM The Logical Disk Manager is an implementation of volume manager for Microsoft Windows NT. Requires the GEOM_PART_LDM kernel op- tion. GPT GUID Partition Table is used on Intel-based Macintosh computers and gradually replacing MBR on most PCs and other systems. Re- quires the GEOM_PART_GPT kernel option. MBR Master Boot Record is used on PCs and removable media. Requires the GEOM_PART_MBR kernel option. The GEOM_PART_EBR option adds support for the Extended Boot Record (EBR), which is used to de- fine a logical partition. The GEOM_PART_EBR_COMPAT option enables backward compatibility for partition names in the EBR scheme. It also prevents any type of actions on such partitions. PC98 An MBR variant for NEC PC-98 and compatible computers. Requires the GEOM_PART_PC98 kernel option. VTOC8 Sun's SMI Volume Table Of Contents, used by SPARC64 and UltraSPARC computers. Requires the GEOM_PART_VTOC8 kernel option. PARTITION TYPES Partition types are identified on disk by particular strings or magic values. The gpart utility uses symbolic names for common partition types so the user does not need to know these values or other details of the partitioning scheme in question. The gpart utility also allows the user to specify scheme-specific partition types for partition types that do not have symbolic names. Symbolic names currently understood and used by FreeBSD are: apple-boot The system partition dedicated to storing boot loaders on some Apple systems. The scheme-spe- cific types are "!171" for MBR, "!Apple_Bootstrap" for APM, and "!426f6f74-0000-11aa-aa11-00306543ecac" for GPT. bios-boot The system partition dedicated to second stage of the boot loader program. Usually it is used by the GRUB 2 loader for GPT partitioning schemes. The scheme-specific type is "!21686148-6449-6E6F-744E-656564454649". efi The system partition for computers that use the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). In such cases, the GPT partitioning scheme is used and the actual partition type for the system partition can also be specified as "!c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b". freebsd A FreeBSD partition subdivided into filesystems with a BSD disklabel. This is a legacy partition type and should not be used for the APM or GPT schemes. The scheme-specific types are "!165" for MBR, "!FreeBSD" for APM, and "!516e7cb4-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b" for GPT. freebsd-boot A FreeBSD partition dedicated to bootstrap code. The scheme-specific type is "!83bd6b9d-7f41-11dc-be0b-001560b84f0f" for GPT. freebsd-swap A FreeBSD partition dedicated to swap space. The scheme-specific types are "!FreeBSD-swap" for APM, "!516e7cb5-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b" for GPT, and tag 0x0901 for VTOC8. freebsd-ufs A FreeBSD partition that contains a UFS or UFS2 filesystem. The scheme-specific types are "!FreeBSD-UFS" for APM, "!516e7cb6-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b" for GPT, and tag 0x0902 for VTOC8. freebsd-vinum A FreeBSD partition that contains a Vinum volume. The scheme-specific types are "!FreeBSD-Vinum" for APM, "!516e7cb8-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b" for GPT, and tag 0x0903 for VTOC8. freebsd-zfs A FreeBSD partition that contains a ZFS volume. The scheme-specific types are "!FreeBSD-ZFS" for APM, "!516e7cba-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b" for GPT, and 0x0904 for VTOC8. Another symbolic names that can be used with gpart utility are: apple-core-storage An Apple Mac OS X partition used by logical volume manager known as Core Storage. The scheme-spe- cific type is "!53746f72-6167-11aa-aa11-00306543ecac" for GPT. apple-hfs An Apple Mac OS X partition that contains a HFS or HFS+ filesystem. The scheme-specific types are "!175" for MBR, "!Apple_HFS" for APM and "!48465300-0000-11aa-aa11-00306543ecac" for GPT. apple-label An Apple Mac OS X partition dedicated to partition metadata that descibes disk device. The scheme- specific type is "!4c616265-6c00-11aa-aa11-00306543ecac" for GPT. apple-raid An Apple Mac OS X partition used in a software RAID configuration. The scheme-specific type is "!52414944-0000-11aa-aa11-00306543ecac" for GPT. apple-raid-offline An Apple Mac OS X partition used in a software RAID configuration. The scheme-specific type is "!52414944-5f4f-11aa-aa11-00306543ecac" for GPT. apple-tv-recovery An Apple Mac OS X partition used by Apple TV. The scheme-specific type is "!5265636f-7665-11aa-aa11-00306543ecac" for GPT. apple-ufs An Apple Mac OS X partition that contains a UFS filesystem. The scheme-specific types are "!168" for MBR, "!Apple_UNIX_SVR2" for APM and "!55465300-0000-11aa-aa11-00306543ecac" for GPT. dragonfly-label32 A DragonFlyBSD partition subdivided into filesys- tems with a BSD disklabel. The scheme-specific type is "!9d087404-1ca5-11dc-8817-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. dragonfly-label64 A DragonFlyBSD partition subdivided into filesys- tems with a disklabel64. The scheme-specific type is "!3d48ce54-1d16-11dc-8696-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. dragonfly-legacy A legacy partition type used in DragonFlyBSD. The scheme-specific type is "!bd215ab2-1d16-11dc-8696-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. dragonfly-ccd A DragonFlyBSD partition used with Concatenated Disk driver. The scheme-specific type is "!dbd5211b-1ca5-11dc-8817-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. dragonfly-hammer A DragonFlyBSD partition that contains a Hammer filesystem. The scheme-specific type is "!61dc63ac-6e38-11dc-8513-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. dragonfly-hammer2 A DragonFlyBSD partition that contains a Hammer2 filesystem. The scheme-specific type is "!5cbb9ad1-862d-11dc-a94d-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. dragonfly-swap A DragonFlyBSD partition dedicated to swap space. The scheme-specific type is "!9d58fdbd-1ca5-11dc-8817-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. dragonfly-ufs A DragonFlyBSD partition that contains an UFS1 filesystem. The scheme-specific type is "!9d94ce7c-1ca5-11dc-8817-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. dragonfly-vinum A DragonFlyBSD partition used with Logical Volume Manager. The scheme-specific type is "!9dd4478f-1ca5-11dc-8817-01301bb8a9f5" for GPT. ebr A partition subdivided into filesystems with a EBR. The scheme-specific type is "!5" for MBR. fat16 A partition that contains a FAT16 filesystem. The scheme-specific type is "!6" for MBR. fat32 A partition that contains a FAT32 filesystem. The scheme-specific type is "!11" for MBR. linux-data A Linux partition that contains some filesystem with data. The scheme-specific types are "!131" for MBR and "!0fc63daf-8483-4772-8e79-3d69d8477de4" for GPT. linux-lvm A Linux partition dedicated to Logical Volume Man- ager. The scheme-specific types are "!142" for MBR and "!e6d6d379-f507-44c2-a23c-238f2a3df928" for GPT. linux-raid A Linux partition used in a software RAID configu- ration. The scheme-specific types are "!253" for MBR and "!a19d880f-05fc-4d3b-a006-743f0f84911e" for GPT. linux-swap A Linux partition dedicated to swap space. The scheme-specific types are "!130" for MBR and "!0657fd6d-a4ab-43c4-84e5-0933c84b4f4f" for GPT. mbr A partition that is sub-partitioned by a Master Boot Record (MBR). This type is known as "!024dee41-33e7-11d3-9d69-0008c781f39f" by GPT. ms-basic-data A basic data partition (BDP) for Microsoft operat- ing systems. In the GPT this type is the equiva- lent to partition types fat16, fat32 and ntfs in MBR. The scheme-specific type is "!ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7" for GPT. ms-ldm-data A partition that contains Logical Disk Manager (LDM) volumes. The scheme-specific types are "!66" for MBR, "!af9b60a0-1431-4f62-bc68-3311714a69ad" for GPT. ms-ldm-metadata A partition that contains Logical Disk Manager (LDM) database. The scheme-specific type is "!5808c8aa-7e8f-42e0-85d2-e1e90434cfb3" for GPT. netbsd-ccd A NetBSD partition used with Concatenated Disk driver. The scheme-specific type is "!2db519c4-b10f-11dc-b99b-0019d1879648" for GPT. netbsd-cgd An encrypted NetBSD partition. The scheme-spe- cific type is "!2db519ec-b10f-11dc-b99b-0019d1879648" for GPT. netbsd-ffs A NetBSD partition that contains an UFS filesys- tem. The scheme-specific type is "!49f48d5a-b10e-11dc-b99b-0019d1879648" for GPT. netbsd-lfs A NetBSD partition that contains an LFS filesys- tem. The scheme-specific type is "!49f48d82-b10e-11dc-b99b-0019d1879648" for GPT. netbsd-raid A NetBSD partition used in a software RAID config- uration. The scheme-specific type is "!49f48daa-b10e-11dc-b99b-0019d1879648" for GPT. netbsd-swap A NetBSD partition dedicated to swap space. The scheme-specific type is "!49f48d32-b10e-11dc-b99b-0019d1879648" for GPT. ntfs A partition that contains a NTFS or exFAT filesys- tem. The scheme-specific type is "!7" for MBR. prep-boot The system partition dedicated to storing boot loaders on some PowerPC systems, notably those made by IBM. The scheme-specific types are "!65" for MBR and "!0x9e1a2d38-c612-4316-aa26-8b49521e5a8b" for GPT. vmware-vmfs A partition that contains a VMware File System (VMFS). The scheme-specific types are "!251" for MBR and "!aa31e02a-400f-11db-9590-000c2911d1b8" for GPT. vmware-vmkdiag A partition that contains a VMware diagostic filesystem. The scheme-specific types are "!252" for MBR and "!9d275380-40ad-11db-bf97-000c2911d1b8" for GPT. vmware-reserved A VMware reserved partition. The scheme-specific type is "!9198effc-31c0-11db-8f-78-000c2911d1b8" for GPT. vmware-vsanhdr A partition claimed by VMware VSAN. The scheme- specific type is "!381cfccc-7288-11e0-92ee-000c2911d0b2" for GPT. ATTRIBUTES The scheme-specific attributes for EBR: active The scheme-specific attributes for GPT: bootme When set, the gptboot stage 1 boot loader will try to boot the system from this partition. Multiple partitions can be marked with the bootme attribute. See gptboot(8) for more details. bootonce Setting this attribute automatically sets the bootme attri- bute. When set, the gptboot stage 1 boot loader will try to boot the system from this partition only once. Multiple par- titions can be marked with the bootonce and bootme attribute pairs. See gptboot(8) for more details. bootfailed This attribute should not be manually managed. It is managed by the gptboot stage 1 boot loader and the /etc/rc.d/gptboot start-up script. See gptboot(8) for more details. lenovofix Setting this attribute overwrites the Protective MBR with a new one where the 0xee partition is the second, rather than the first record. This resolves a BIOS compatibility issue with some Lenovo models including the X220, T420, and T520, allowing them to boot from GPT partitioned disks without us- ing EFI. The scheme-specific attributes for MBR: active The scheme-specific attributes for PC98: active bootable BOOTSTRAPPING FreeBSD supports several partitioning schemes and each scheme uses dif- ferent bootstrap code. The bootstrap code is located in a specific disk area for each partitioning scheme, and may vary in size for different schemes. Bootstrap code can be separated into two types. The first type is embed- ded in the partitioning scheme's metadata, while the second type is lo- cated on a specific partition. Embedding bootstrap code should only be done with the gpart bootcode command with the -b bootcode option. The GEOM PART class knows how to safely embed bootstrap code into specific partitioning scheme metadata without causing any damage. The Master Boot Record (MBR) uses a 512-byte bootstrap code image, embed- ded into the partition table's metadata area. There are two variants of this bootstrap code: /boot/mbr and /boot/boot0. /boot/mbr searches for a partition with the active attribute (see the ATTRIBUTES section) in the partition table. Then it runs next bootstrap stage. The /boot/boot0 im- age contains a boot manager with some additional interactive functions for multi-booting from a user-selected partition. A BSD disklabel is usually created inside an MBR partition (slice) with type freebsd (see the PARTITION TYPES section). It uses 8 KB size boot- strap code image /boot/boot, embedded into the partition table's metadata area. Both types of bootstrap code are used to boot from the GUID Partition Ta- ble. First, a protective MBR is embedded into the first disk sector from the /boot/pmbr image. It searches through the GPT for a freebsd-boot partition (see the PARTITION TYPES section) and runs the next bootstrap stage from it. The freebsd-boot partition should be smaller than 545 KB. It can be located either before or after other FreeBSD partitions on the disk. There are two variants of bootstrap code to write to this parti- tion: /boot/gptboot and /boot/gptzfsboot. /boot/gptboot is used to boot from UFS partitions. gptboot searches through freebsd-ufs partitions in the GPT and selects one to boot based on the bootonce and bootme attributes. If neither attribute is found, /boot/gptboot boots from the first freebsd-ufs partition. /boot/loader (the third bootstrap stage) is loaded from the first partition that matches these conditions. See gptboot(8) for more information. /boot/gptzfsboot is used to boot from ZFS. It searches through the GPT for freebsd-zfs partitions, trying to detect ZFS pools. After all pools are detected, /boot/zfsloader is started from the first one found. The VTOC8 scheme does not support embedding bootstrap code. Instead, the 8 KBytes bootstrap code image /boot/boot1 should be written with the gpart bootcode command with the -p bootcode option to all sufficiently large VTOC8 partitions. To do this the -i index option could be omitted. The APM scheme also does not support embedding bootstrap code. Instead, the 800 KBytes bootstrap code image /boot/boot1.hfs should be written with the gpart bootcode command to a partition of type apple-boot, which should also be 800 KB in size. OPERATIONAL FLAGS Actions other than the commit and undo actions take an optional -f flags option. This option is used to specify action-specific operational flags. By default, the gpart utility defines the `C' flag so that the action is immediately committed. The user can specify "-f x" to have the action result in a pending change that can later, with other pending changes, be committed as a single compound change with the commit action or reverted with the undo action. RECOVERING The GEOM PART class supports recovering of partition tables only for GPT. The GPT primary metadata is stored at the beginning of the device. For redundancy, a secondary (backup) copy of the metadata is stored at the end of the device. As a result of having two copies, some corruption of metadata is not fatal to the working of GPT. When the kernel detects corrupt metadata, it marks this table as corrupt and reports the problem. destroy and recover are the only operations allowed on corrupt tables. If one GPT header appears to be corrupt but the other copy remains in- tact, the kernel will log the following: GEOM: provider: the primary GPT table is corrupt or invalid. GEOM: provider: using the secondary instead -- recovery strongly advised. or GEOM: provider: the secondary GPT table is corrupt or invalid. GEOM: provider: using the primary only -- recovery suggested. Also gpart commands such as show, status and list will report about cor- rupt tables. If the size of the device has changed (e.g., volume expansion) the sec- ondary GPT header will no longer be located in the last sector. This is not a metadata corruption, but it is dangerous because any corruption of the primary GPT will lead to loss of the partition table. This problem is reported by the kernel with the message: GEOM: provider: the secondary GPT header is not in the last LBA. This situation can be recovered with the recover command. This command reconstructs the corrupt metadata using known valid metadata and relo- cates the secondary GPT to the end of the device. NOTE: The GEOM PART class can detect the same partition table visible through different GEOM providers, and some of them will be marked as cor- rupt. Be careful when choosing a provider for recovery. If you choose incorrectly you can destroy the metadata of another GEOM class, e.g., GEOM MIRROR or GEOM LABEL. SYSCTL VARIABLES The following sysctl(8) variables can be used to control the behavior of the PART GEOM class. The default value is shown next to each variable. kern.geom.part.check_integrity: 1 This variable controls the behaviour of metadata integrity checks. When integrity checks are enabled, the PART GEOM class verifies all generic partition parameters obtained from the disk metadata. If some inconsistency is detected, the partition table will be rejected with a diagnostic message: GEOM_PART: Integrity check failed (provider, scheme). kern.geom.part.ldm.debug: 0 Debug level of the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) module. This can be set to a number between 0 and 2 inclusive. If set to 0 mini- mal debug information is printed, and if set to 2 the maximum amount of debug information is printed. kern.geom.part.ldm.show_mirrors: 0 This variable controls how the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) module handles mirrored volumes. By default mirrored volumes are shown as partitions with type ms-ldm-data (see the PARTITION TYPES sec- tion). If this variable set to 1 each component of the mirrored volume will be present as independent partition. NOTE: This may break a mirrored volume and lead to data damage. kern.geom.part.mbr.enforce_chs: 0 Specify how the Master Boot Record (MBR) module does alignment. If this variable is set to a non-zero value, the module will au- tomatically recalculate the user-specified offset and size for alignment with the CHS geometry. Otherwise the values will be left unchanged. EXIT STATUS Exit status is 0 on success, and 1 if the command fails. EXAMPLES The examples below assume that the disk's logical block size is 512 bytes, regardless of its physical block size. GPT In this example, we will format ada0 with the GPT scheme and create boot, swap and root partitions. First, we need to create the partition table: /sbin/gpart create -s GPT ada0 Next, we install a protective MBR with the first-stage bootstrap code. The protective MBR lists a single, bootable partition spanning the entire disk, thus allowing non-GPT-aware BIOSes to boot from the disk and pre- venting tools which do not understand the GPT scheme from considering the disk to be unformatted. /sbin/gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr ada0 We then create a dedicated freebsd-boot partition to hold the second- stage boot loader, which will load the FreeBSD kernel and modules from a UFS or ZFS filesystem. This partition must be larger than the bootstrap code (either /boot/gptboot for UFS or /boot/gptzfsboot for ZFS), but smaller than 545 kB since the first-stage loader will load the entire partition into memory during boot, regardless of how much data it actu- ally contains. We create a 472-block (236 kB) boot partition at offset 40, which is the size of the partition table (34 blocks or 17 kB) rounded up to the nearest 4 kB boundary. /sbin/gpart add -b 40 -s 472 -t freebsd-boot ada0 /sbin/gpart bootcode -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0 We now create a 4 GB swap partition at the first available offset, which is 40 + 472 = 512 blocks (256 kB). /sbin/gpart add -s 4G -t freebsd-swap ada0 Aligning the swap partition and all subsequent partitions on a 256 kB boundary ensures optimal performance on a wide range of media, from plain old disks with 512-byte blocks, through modern "advanced format" disks with 4096-byte physical blocks, to RAID volumes with stripe sizes of up to 256 kB. Finally, we create and format an 8 GB freebsd-ufs partition for the root filesystem, leaving the rest of the slice free for additional filesys- tems: /sbin/gpart add -s 8G -t freebsd-ufs ada0 /sbin/newfs -Uj /dev/ada0p3 MBR In this example, we will format ada0 with the MBR scheme and create a single partition which we subdivide using a traditional BSD disklabel. First, we create the partition table and a single 64 GB partition, then we mark that partition active (bootable) and install the first-stage boot loader: /sbin/gpart create -s MBR ada0 /sbin/gpart add -t freebsd -s 64G ada0 /sbin/gpart set -a active -i 1 ada0 /sbin/gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 ada0 Next, we create a disklabel in that partition ("slice" in disklabel terminology) with room for up to 20 partitions: /sbin/gpart create -s BSD -n 20 ada0s1 We then create an 8 GB root partition and a 4 GB swap partition: /sbin/gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -s 8G ada0s1 /sbin/gpart add -t freebsd-swap -s 4G ada0s1 Finally, we install the appropriate boot loader for the BSD label: /sbin/gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot ada0s1 VTOC8 Create a VTOC8 scheme on da0: /sbin/gpart create -s VTOC8 da0 Create a 512MB-sized freebsd-ufs partition to contain a UFS filesystem from which the system can boot. /sbin/gpart add -s 512M -t freebsd-ufs da0 Create a 15GB-sized freebsd-ufs partition to contain a UFS filesystem and aligned on 4KB boundaries: /sbin/gpart add -s 15G -t freebsd-ufs -a 4k da0 After creating all required partitions, embed bootstrap code into them: /sbin/gpart bootcode -p /boot/boot1 da0 Backup and Restore Create a backup of the partition table from da0: /sbin/gpart backup da0 > da0.backup Restore the partition table from the backup to da0: /sbin/gpart restore -l da0 < /mnt/da0.backup Clone the partition table from ada0 to ada1 and ada2: /sbin/gpart backup ada0 | /sbin/gpart restore -F ada1 ada2 SEE ALSO geom(4), boot0cfg(8), geom(8), gptboot(8) HISTORY The gpart utility appeared in FreeBSD 7.0. AUTHORS Marcel Moolenaar <marcel@FreeBSD.org> FreeBSD 13.0 July 25, 2016 FreeBSD 13.0
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | PARTITIONING SCHEMES | PARTITION TYPES | ATTRIBUTES | BOOTSTRAPPING | OPERATIONAL FLAGS | RECOVERING | SYSCTL VARIABLES | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS
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