Reading PCBSD Files While In Ubuntu

[Eddie Wilson]

Good Day All,
I've installed PCBSD 1.4 and I like it. I had to configure Grub so I could start the bsd system. No problem but I was wanting to know how I can access the bsd file system while I'm in Ubuntu? I know Ubuntu will see the file system but not know what it is because I had to edit fstab in order for Ubuntu to finish booting up automatically. Thank you for any help you can give on this.
Eddie

PS: I did check the PCBSD forums I but wanted to get advice from Ubuntu users.

[maybeway36]

I know that the FreeBSD filesystem is called UFS, but I've never tired mounting it with Linux.

[theonlyrealperson]

I've used both BSD and Linux for about a year now, and I haven't met a Linux distro yet that has been able to read the UFS system. A small minority even recognize it as a UFS system...

Good luck, post it if you ever find out differently...

[John.Michael.Kane]

This info may point in you in the direction you need.
http://www.webservertalk.com/message1741887.html
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Mount_UFS_partitions
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+FreeBSD-5.html
How to mount a PC-BSD partition under Linux? (http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:XDlJ7e7jLEEJ:faqs.pcbsd.org/9_292_en.html+Mounting+FreeBSD+Partition+on+Linux&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

Note:From reading around. kernel devs describe linux support for UFS write as 'dangerous' however you should be able to get read support.

[Bachstelze]

The thing that is known to confuse most new uses is that only the BSD partition appears for example in fdisk -l :


firas@Ana ~ $ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8f800100

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 8 64228+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 * 9 1224 9767520 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 1225 2427 9663097+ a6 OpenBSD
/dev/hda4 2428 14593 97723395 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 14532 14593 498015 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6 2428 12299 79296777 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 13227 13291 522081 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 13292 13356 522081 83 Linux
/dev/hda9 13357 14400 8385898+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda10 14401 14531 1052226 83 Linux
/dev/hda11 12300 13226 7446096 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order


(here /dev/hda3). And this partition contains no filesystem of it's own and is therefore not mountable. However, your actual BSD partitions (that contain your UFS filesystems) appear for example in /proc/partitions :


firas@Ana ~ $ cat /proc/partitions
major minor #blocks name

3 0 117220824 hda
3 1 64228 hda1
3 2 9767520 hda2
3 3 9663097 hda3
3 4 1 hda4
3 5 498015 hda5
3 6 79296777 hda6
3 7 522081 hda7
3 8 522081 hda8
3 9 8385898 hda9
3 10 1052226 hda10
3 11 7446096 hda11
3 12 136552 hda12
3 13 530145 hda13
3 14 265072 hda14
3 15 136552 hda15
3 16 8594775 hda16


(here, /dev/hda12 to /dev/hda16). Then, to mount them, simply do a


sudo mount /dev/something -t ufs -o ro,ufstype=ufs2 /somewhere

or add a relevant line in your fstab. Attention, ufs2 is the UFS filesystem type used by FreeBSD, which PC-BSD is based on. Other BSDs use different types (for my OpenBSD partitions, for instance, I use ufstype=44bsd).

[carloslosgrande]

Hi HymnToLife, that was very clear and a great help. Just 1 question - the last line -
mount /dev.....etc, etc....../somewhere
What would be a good place to mount it?
clearly /home isn't a good idea, (just tried).
Thanks.

[Bachstelze]

Usually, filesystems which do not belong to the system currently in use are mounted under /mnt, so I guess a good place would be /mnt/pcbsd (don't forget to create that directory before).

[carloslosgrande]

Thanks HymnToLife, I didn't know that was the usual practice,.... learn something every day.