5.3 amd64 X200: Upgrading OpenBSD using USB Flashdrive.

Hey,

This is related to Creating USB Flashdrive installer. I posted previously. I have another OpenBSD machine in my office, not that the company requires it but as it's my machine, I installed whatever I want. The machine is still on 5.2, so this is a good chance to test my shiny USB Flashdrive installer.

If your machine is just like mine, which support USB Booting, I just boot from USB Flashdrive. Bolded is my input.

Welcome to the OpenBSD/amd64 5.3 installation program.
(I)nstall, (U)pgrade or (S)hell? u

Available disks are: sd0 sd1.
Which disk is the root disk? ('?' for details) [sd0] ?
sd0: ST9160823AS (149.1G)
sd1: DataTraveler 2.0 (1.9G)

As you can see it asked for the root disk. Which is the disk I want to upgrade. I choose ? to check which device is for my primary disk and which is for the USB Flashdrive. As you can see, sd1 is my Kingston DataTraveler USB Flashdrive. So then I just press ENTER for the default choice [sd0] for the root disk.

Let's upgrade the sets!
Location of sets? (cd disk ftp http or 'done') [cd] disk

Remember the sets are in the USB Flashdrive so I need to set the location correctly. So I choose disk.

Is the disk partition already mounted? [no] ENTER
Available disks are: sd0 sd1.
Which one contains the upgrade media? (or 'done') [sd1] ENTER
  a:        1228768             64        4.2BSD    2048    16384    1
  i:        2658867        1228863        MSDOS
Available sd1 partitions are: a i.
Which one has the upgrade sets? (or 'done') [a] Enter
Pathname to the sets? (or 'done') [5.3/amd64] 5.3

The sd1 is not mounted, so I need to answer accordingly. I then choose sd1 and then the a partition (remember sd1a is for OpenBSD, sd1i is for MSDOS). My 5.3 sets is in sd1a/5.3/ so I just input the directory name 5.3.

Select sets by entering a set name, a file name pattern or 'all'. De-select sets by prepending a '-' to the set name, file name pattern or 'all'. Selected sets are labelled '[X]'.

Now I can see the list of sets I have in the 5.3 directory. Continue to upgrade as usual. After it's upgraded, I rebooted the machine to change the timezone, then mount the USB Flashdrive again to do sysmerge. The usual stuff.

Installation via USB Flashdrive is FAST! Later.

5.3 AMD64 X200: Upgrading, the OpenBSD way.

Hi,

Remember 5.1 AMD64: Following -current & Radeon 6.14.3 installation?. Well, I have an apology to make.

The correct way to upgrade is:

1) Copy bsd* and *tgz files for upgrade.
2) Copy the bsd.rd to / .
3) Reboot, then boot> boot bsd.rd . Proceed with upgrade.
4) sysmerge.
5) Upgrade packages.

As you can see, sysmerge should be after upgrading, not before as I've posted previously. Sorry bout that. Yes I used my method from 5.0 until 5.3 without any issue but it's not the official way. It might break the upgrade process.

So, from now on, I will follow the official way.

5.3 AMD64 X200: Creating USB Flashdrive installer.

Heyya,

I've been thinking about some sort of installation method without using CDs. As OpenBSD release new version every 6 month, burning CDs for new ISO is just wasting CD. Currently I still hang on with my 5.0 installation CD and have all the installation files of 5.1 to 5.3 in an external drive. So, if my X200 went crazy, I need to install 5.0 then upgrade all the way to 5.3.

I thought of creating another partition in my X200, just to hold installation files. It will be something like an OS Recovery partition. It's a nice idea to play with, but then Recovery Partition is useless if my hard disk have hardware issue.

So I thought of using a thumbdrive as OpenBSD installation media. Good thing is, I can just update the OpenBSD version on the thumbdrive when new version is released.

I have a Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 USB thumbdrive, 2Gb capacity. 2Gb for OpenBSD installation media is too much, so I think of creating 2 partition on it, 600Mb for OpenBSD installer + all the installation files and the rest for normal thumbdrive usage (FAT32 filesystem).

After searching for relevant informations, this is how I did it. First, I need to clear the thumbdrive. The thumbdrive I want to use is identified as sd1 so yours might be different. Do take note as you don't want to wipe the wrong drive. So I booted my X200 into 5.3, then get to the console. I plugged in my thumbdrive and proceed with this command (bold is my input):

$ sudo fdisk -iy sd1
Writing MBR at offset 0.

Then I proceed to edit the thumbdrive's slice (partition) using fdisk.

$ sudo fdisk -e sd1
Enter 'help' for information

You can check your thumbdrive's slice but mine have 4 (0 to 3) with number 3 for OpenBSD. So I edit the slice's information for OpenBSD part.

fdisk: 1> e 3
            Starting         Ending         LBA Info:
 #: id      C   H   S -      C   H   S [       start:        size ]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*3: A6      0   1   2 -    241 254  63 [          64:     3887666 ] OpenBSD     Partition id ('0' to disable) [0 - FF]: [A6] (? for help) ENTER
Do you wish to edit in CHS mode? [n] ENTER
Partition offset: [64] ENTER
Partition size: [3887666] 600m

Take note that I didn't use the CHS mode. For the OpenBSD slice, it's ok. But I need to use the CHS mode for the FAT32 slice or else I won't get the 2 partitions I needed.

fdisk: 1> e 0
            Starting         Ending         LBA Info:
 #: id      C   H   S -      C   H   S [       start:        size ]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 0: 00      0   0   0 -      0   0   0 [           0:           0 ] unused     
Partition id ('0' to disable) [0 - FF]: [0] (? for help) 0B
Do you wish to edit in CHS mode? [n] y
BIOS Starting cylinder [0 - 241]: [0] 76
BIOS Starting head [0 - 254]: [0] 125
BIOS Starting sector [1 - 63]: [1] 49
BIOS Ending cylinder [0 - 241]: [0] 241
BIOS Ending head [0 - 254]: [0] 254
BIOS Ending sector [1 - 63]: [1] 63

As you can see, slicing the FAT32 part is a bit tricky. I need to verify my OpenBSD's slice CHS information (Ending) and adjust the FAT32 CHS informations (Starting - Ending) accordingly. As you can see, my OpenBSD's CHS ended at 241 - 254 - 63 so I used that info as Starting CHS detail for the FAT32 slice. The Ending part should be the maximum of the CHS available.

Now I flag the OpenBSD slice to make it active.

fdisk:*1> flag 3
Partition 3 marked active.

Then quit and save changes.

fdisk:*1> quit

That was only the slicing part. In Window's world it's called partitioning. But now I need to partition the OpenBSD slice created. For this I need to use disklabel.

$ sudo disklabel -E sd1
Label editor (enter '?' for help at any prompt)
> a
partition: [a] ENTER
offset: [64] ENTER
size: [1228799] *
FS type: [4.2BSD] ENTER
Rounding size to bsize (32 sectors): 1228768

As the thumbdrive will just be an installation media, no need to create SWAP or any other partition. To confirm, I need the partition info.

> p m
OpenBSD area: 64-1228864; size: 600.0M; free: 0.0M
#                size           offset  fstype [fsize bsize  cpg]
  a:           600.0M               64  4.2BSD   2048 16384    1
  c:          1906.0M                0  unused                  
  i:          1298.3M          1228863   MSDOS

Looks good. Remember that sd1a is the a (OpenBSD) partition and sd1i is for the FAT32. Now quit and save changes.

> q
Write new label?: [y] ENTER

Sliced and partitioned, the thumbdrive is ready to be formatted. I use newfs.

$ sudo newfs /dev/rsd1a
$ sudo newfs /dev/rsd1i

It might take a while depending on how big your thumbdrive's capacity is. When done, I mount the OpenBSD's slice sd1a.

$ sudo mount /dev/sd1a /mnt

Then I copy my X200's /boot file to that thumbdrive.

$ sudo cp /boot /mnt

After that I make the slice bootable.

$ sudo /usr/mdec/installboot -v /mnt/boot /usr/mdec/biosboot sd1

Then I need to create a folder named 5.3 and copy all 5.3 installation files (bsd* & *tgz) into it.

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/5.3

Then I need to create an etc folder, create a boot.conf file inside it.

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/etc
$ sudo touch /mnt/etc/boot.conf

Edit /mnt/etc/boot.conf and add:

set image /5.3/bsd.rd

Finally, I unmount the thumbdrive, reboot to test. The bsd.rd got booted nicely but I haven't tested the installation or upgrade procedure. Didn't want to mess with my current installation. If you tried this, do comment on how it goes. Later.

Update: Here's my experience on Upgrading OpenBSD using USB Flashdrive that I've created above.

5.3 amd64 X200: Update to 5.3 but biosboot have problem! Ahhh!

Hola,

I updated my X200 to 5.3 last night, using the bsd.rd upgrade method. The usual stuff.

But when I reboot my X200, it's stuck at:

Loading...

That's all. Tried downloading the bsd, bsd.rd and bsd.mp file and do the upgrade process again, still with the same issue. Tried repairing the installboot

# cp /usr/mdec/boot /boot
# /usr/mdec/installboot -n -v /boot /usr/mdec/biosboot sd0

But then still I just can see the Loading... screen. Ahhh! Currently I'm logging in to my X200 using my old 5.0 install cd.

To do that, just boot the laptop using CD, when I see the boot> title:

boot> boot hd0a:/bsd

So basically the upgrade is ok, but the /boot have issue. Ahhh!


[Update 04/05/2013]

I wrote to misc@ and thanks to Dawe who replied, I managed to solve the issue.

By looking at the changelist, there's many changes in 5.3. Including biosboot(8) and installboot(8). But I didn't quite see the exact connection with the problem I had. So Dawe pointed me to the same problem faced by him, and solved via creating a new openbsd.pbr so Win7's bootloader can boot OpenBSD properly.

I tested that, and so, it does work as advertised. So, problem solved.