Re: [9fans] Re: venti+fossil problems on new install

[John Stalker <stalker@maths.tcd.ie>]

> this means that you have not installed the plan 9 mbr; the fact that one
> can't be written; it could mean that there's a bad parameter somewhere.

I think the question of whether the mbr is plan9 or not is a bit of a red
herring.  I have trouble even when booted from the cdrom.  The specific
error message I get about not having an mbr comes from
/sys/lib/dist/pc/inst/partdisk on the cdrom.  A quick look at the rc
script shows that it should appear when /sys/lib/dist/pc/inst/hasmbr
returns false.  That should happen when the magic number in the last
two bytes of the mbr is wrong, i.e. not aa55.  The magic number is not
wrong, however.  The only explanation I can come up with is that the
read of /dev/sdC0/data is failing for some reason.

> now that' you have your machine to this state, what you can do is
> try to check to see if any look at all healthy.  the easiest is 9fat.
> try
> 	9fat:
> does this mount the partition?  if not you'll need to read prep(8)
> and follow the directions for setting up a bootable partition there.

9fat: works.  I used it to examine plan9.ini, which looks fine.

> after that's sorted, you can mount venti by hand.
> 	venti=tcp!$youripaddress!17034	# 17034 = venti
> 	venti -c /dev/sdC0/arenas
> 
> and fossil by hand
> 
> 	fossil -f /dev/sdC0/fossil -c 'srv -A fossil' -c 'srv -p fossilcons'

> the fossilcons(8) man page can get you through some reconfiguration,
> if required.

I haven't tried this yet.

> if that all works use "fshalt" to make sure that everything is cleanly
> shutdown. then reboot.  if things still aren't working, perhaps your
> boot loader needs some help  or there are other problems with, say,
> your plan9.ini.
> 
> - erik
-- 
John Stalker
School of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin
tel +353 1 896 1983
fax +353 1 896 2282