$OpenBSD: INSTALL.linux,v 1.15 2010/02/22 10:44:07 giovanni Exp $ Linux + OpenBSD: it's possible by Marc Espie -- espie@OpenBSD.org recent information by Tim Kornau -- opti@openbsd.de It is perfectly possible to have Linux and OpenBSD on the same disk. Both can read and write other partitions. You can even install OpenBSD from an ext2fs partition (choose install from disk... ext2fs does not appear in the choices, but `default' it is). If you are starting from scratch, it is better to install Linux first. Since you are going to use several OSes, you need a way to multi-boot. If you keep Windows NT (or XP) on the disk, its multi-booter can deal with OpenBSD (see the FAQ). Otherwise Linux's lilo fits the bill fine. Recent versions of GRUB can also multiboot OpenBSD. IMPORTANT: don't forget about lilo. If you use lilo, you can't uninstall linux from this disk without *first* restoring the MBR to an un-liloed state and making *dead* sure OpenBSD boots as a default. If you want to grab space from an older Windows/DOS partition, use fips. Fips20 knows all about FAT32, so windows 95 is no longer a problem. Or use the commercial offering Partition Magic. Other sources of information, especially concerning other BSD systems, must be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. OpenBSD definitely differs: - disklabels can hold up to 16 partitions, - type is A6, not A5, - the `special' partitions in the disklabel are only a (root), b (swap), and c (whole disk). Planning & Good advice ---------------------- If you are starting on a new machine, be prepared to throw your installation away. It is generally the case that you will install the machine, play with it for a week/a month, and find out that you don't like the setup, and then start over. Write down any interesting information you find out during your first installation. Don't do too many things to your box during the first month, as you will lose these while reinstalling, unless you can do backups conveniently. Do you really need to have a dual-boot machines ? Most people don't need both Linux and OpenBSD. Once you're satisfied with OpenBSD, you may find out you just want to erase Linux... Try to find out what your precise needs are, locate partitions whose size may change next to each other, as far as possible... Put partitions whose contents are unimportant (or whose backups are always up-to-date) next to the frontier between OpenBSD and Linux. For instance, it's usually a good idea to locate the swap area such that you can grow or shrink it. Keep in mind that exceptional usage (very large, temporary swaps) can use a temporary file instead of a partition, under both OpenBSD (svnd) and Linux. First principles ---------------- OpenBSD doesn't only use the MBR partitions (the ones mapped in the Master Boot Record) for booting. Afterwards, it trusts some bsd specific information called the disklabel, which is another completely distinct description of your hard disk. It does not even have to be consistent with the usual DOS partitions information. [OpenBSD requires a primary MBR partition for booting, anything else is officially unsupported.] Throughout this document, we will distinguish between MBR partitions and disklabel partitions whenever this is necessary. The safest way to deal with things is to allocate one primary MBR partition for OpenBSD, type A6, that you will partition further with disklabel. If you can, it is even safer to devote a full disk to OpenBSD: this limits the number of mistakes you can do. Admittedly there are some cases where this isn't a option (my machine is a laptop... I have to cope with the hard disk I have), or where this can be slower (SCSI disk setups will yield better throughput with swap interleaved among the disks). Prime rule: *ALWAYS* use the disk partitioning tools that go with the OS. They know more about its internal workings than you do. So use linux fdisk for linux partitions, don't let it touch the OpenBSD disklabel, and reciprocally. Mapping your disk ----------------- Starting from Linux, get a grasp of your partitions. Use df to check which is what, then fdisk to get the actual setup of the disk. Write down the setup onto a bit of paper, in case you make a mistake further down. It can come in very handy. Disk /dev/hda: 128 heads, 63 sectors, 993 cylinders Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 1 211 850720+ 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M /dev/hda2 212 273 249984 83 Linux native /dev/hda3 274 992 2899008 a6 OpenBSD The + at the end of the DOS line is because linux fdisk is brain-damaged and wants to write output in 1024-sized chunks, so this stands for `850720 blocks and a half' As you can see, my linux setup is very small. I have enough to check how things such as gcc work on linux, but my machine is definitely an OpenBSD developer's box. Get the display to sectors with u, and jot down the corresponding information as well: Disk /dev/hda: 128 heads, 63 sectors, 993 cylinders Units = sectors of 1 * 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 63 1701503 850720+ 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M /dev/hda2 1701504 2201471 249984 83 Linux native /dev/hda3 2201472 7999487 2899008 a6 OpenBSD -- Okay, finally switch to expert mode, and write the corresponding data. Disk /dev/hda: 128 heads, 63 sectors, 993 cylinders Nr AF Hd Sec Cyl Hd Sec Cyl Start Size ID 1 00 1 1 0 127 63 210 63 1701441 06 2 00 0 1 211 127 63 272 1701504 499968 83 3 00 0 1 273 127 63 991 2201472 5798016 a6 4 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 Note that this is STILL the same data. The good point about this last display is that it is almost what you're going to see in OpenBSD fdisk, usually ! (I think there may be some very weird cases where this won't match) There are some differences though, mostly because Linux fdisk has made some rather confusing choices: - in simple mode it starts numbering cylinders at 1... whereas everything else starts from 0. - in simple mode it shows blocks of 1024 bytes, which makes for half-blocks (marked with a +) and sizes halved from the real block size. - in expert mode it shows extended partitions offset from the start of the extended partition. - the hd/sec/cyl is a confusing order, as the sector number is computed from cyl/hd/sec, in that order. - it never shows and doesn't care about the real disk geometry. You will notice that I don't have a linux swap partition visible. My linux setup currently uses the OpenBSD swap area. Before starting to install OpenBSD, now would be a good time to check the INSTALL.pt document... Especially note the alignment restriction of partitions (first sector of a partition must be at head 0, sector 1 of a cylinder). This is enforced by Linux' fdisk. The other point to note is that extended partitions are actually linked lists. This will show up in OpenBSD's fdisk. Your clock and OpenBSD ---------------------- OpenBSD expects your hardware clock to be in universal time, and uses time zones to give you local time. With Linux, this depends... most distributions use a small program called hwclock to set up the system time from the hardware clock when booting... there is a --utc option if your hardware clock is in universal time, but this is not always what happens by default. For instance, on a redhat system, up to 5.2, this happens in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit which loads an /etc/sysconfig/clock that defines a variable called UTC, and then proceeds calling hwclock. - ensure UTC is set to true, - adjust your hardware clock from the system time if necessary, e.g., hwclock --systohc --utc. Normally, this is one of the choices that the Linux installation program lets you do: set your hardware clock to GMT. The OpenBSD installation ------------------------ If you've got the space, you can install from your ext2fs partitions. This is what I did, a long time in the past, as I had a slip connection to the rest of the world, and the OpenBSD install floppy does not include slip. REMEMBER TO BACKUP ALL IMPORTANT DATA ON YOUR DISK BEFORE DOING THE INSTALLATION !!! So you cp floppy*.fs /dev/fd0, then reboot from the floppy. First, the booter loads, then there is a boot prompt. Five seconds later, the kernel and the ram disk image are loaded, and the kernel is run. After a while, through a few more prompts, you get to fdisk and you can enter the new partition into the MBR. This is what the fdisk dump looked like after my changes: Disk: wd0 geometry: 992/128/63 [7999488 sectors] Offset: 0 Signatures: 0xAA55,0x0 Starting Ending #: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0: 06 0 1 1 - 210 127 63 [ 63 - 1701441] DOS > 32MB 1: 83 211 0 1 - 272 127 63 [ 1701504 - 499968] Linux files* 2: A6 273 0 1 - 991 127 63 [ 2201472 - 5798016] OpenBSD 3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused fdisk geometry tells me that I needn't worry about cylinder 1024. This matches very closely with what linux fdisk saw. If you had extended partitions, it would be a trifle bit harder: you just follow the extended partition links using select, jot down whatever you need, add the OpenBSD partition into the MBR to look like you want it to, and save everything. The * at the end of partition #1 means that the system normally boots under Linux. In reality, lilo takes control and disregards this completely. After you leave fdisk, you get to the interesting part: the disklabel itself. If all goes well, OpenBSD synthesizes a nice disklabel out of what it can deduce from the disk, including the ext2fs partitions. There are only a few subtleties to take care of: - initially, you can ONLY edit the disklabel part that matches the OpenBSD partition that was declared in the MBR (what you just entered in fdisk, the `slice' from FreeBSD lingo). Most simple installation don't need to edit more than that, but you can use b 0 * to unlock the whole disk (this is a bad idea in most cases). - your real disk geometry becomes more relevant. The Berkeley fast file system can't use partial cylinder groups, hence BSD partitions should start on cylinder boundaries, as any remaining sectors will be lost anyway. (Actually, what's important is the disk geometry that disklabel gives you. Trust it on that). In my case, sectors/cylinder=1008 and bytes/sector=512, so the granularity of disklabel partitions is 504 Kb. - units for size and offset can be given as sectors (default) or cylinders. After editing, this is what my disklabel looks like: # editing # using MBR partition 2: type A6 off 2201472 (0x219780) size 5798016 (0x587880) # /dev/rwd0c: type: ESDI disk: label: TOSHIBA MK4006M flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 63 tracks/cylinder: 16 sectors/cylinder: 1008 cylinders: 7944 total sectors: 8007552 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # milliseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # milliseconds drivedata: 0 16 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 104832 2201472 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 2184 - 2287) b: 274176 2306304 swap # (Cyl. 2288 - 2559) c: 8007552 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 7943) d: 613872 2580480 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 2560 - 3168) e: 920304 4846464 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 4808 - 5720) f: 628992 4217472 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 4184 - 4807) g: 204624 5766768 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 5721 - 5923) h: 1073520 5971392 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 5924 - 6988) i: 962640 7044912 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 6989 - 7943) j: 1701441 63 MSDOS # (Cyl. 0*- 1687) k: 499968 1701504 ext2fs # (Cyl. 1688 - 2183) l: 1023120 3194352 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 3169 - 4183) Things that check, more or less automatically: - this disklabel is saved in MBR partition #2 (basic DOS partition 2), as expected. - all the BSD partitions proper are aligned on a cylinder boundary (ie no '*'). the root partition begins at the precise same offset the corresponding DOS partition begins, and it extends for the same length. - the ext2fs partitions have the exact same layout under the OpenBSD disklabel. - the swap partition is very large. It gets used as mfs for my tmp directories. And here is the corresponding /etc/fstab: /dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1 /dev/wd0d /usr ffs ro 1 2 /dev/wd0l /usr/local ffs ro 1 2 /dev/wd0e /home ffs rw 1 2 /dev/wd0g /var ffs rw 1 2 /dev/wd0h /big ffs ro 1 2 /dev/wd0f /usr/obj ffs rw 1 2 /dev/wd0i /vbig ffs rw 1 2 /dev/wd0j /dos msdos rw 1 2 /dev/wd0k /linux ext2fs rw /dev/wd0b /tmp mfs rw One point that is somewhat laborious is that the disklabel -E mode (which you are currently using) tends to move partitions around to ensure that ALL defined partitions are contiguous. For that reason, it is better if you don't have to use b 0 *, otherwise partitions will be moved around to remove holes, without regard for the rigid MBR partitioning. ext2fs and DOS partitions should be recognized and positioned automatically if all goes well. Once the disklabel is written to disk, the installation proceeds as usual. ext2fs partitions are perfectly usable from OpenBSD. Booting with GRUB ----------------- Here is a sample configuration for a linux 2.4, linux 2.6, OpenBSD 3.6, WindowsXP timeout 30 default 0 fallback 1 title OpenBSD rootnoverify (hd0,3) makeactive chainloader +1 title WinOS rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1 title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel root (hd0,2) kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3 ro savedefault boot Booting with GRUB2 ----------------- Here is a sample configuration for OpenBSD and Windows 7 menuentry "OpenBSD" { set root=(hd0,3,a) chainloader +1 } menuentry "Windows 7" { insmod ntfs set root=(hd0,1) chainloader +1 } Booting with lilo ----------------- First time I booted my system back, I did not get into OpenBSD as expected... I plain forgot I had installed lilo in the master boot block, and lilo does not heed the active partition flag. The fix was rather simple: from the Linux system, I just had to edit lilo.conf to add the OpenBSD entry: boot=/dev/hda map=/boot/map install=/boot/boot.b prompt timeout=500 other=/dev/hda3 label=bsd table=/dev/hda image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.3 label=linux vga=4 root=/dev/hda2 read-only other=/dev/hda1 label=dos table=/dev/hda Rerun lilo (DON'T FORGET THAT STEP), and voila, OpenBSD is able to boot! Linux and OpenBSD partitions ---------------------------- You will probably need to reconfigure and rebuild your linux kernel to recognize BSD disklabels... Here is how it shows up on my box: Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3! < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 hda9 hda10 hda11 hda12 hda13 hda14 hda15 > - the disklabel is detected early, but handled later. - disklabel handling should remove duplicates: all partitions that are present as both MBR and disklabel partition should get removed silently. (this does not seem to work as advertised presently). - the remaining partitions are checked for consistency. and here is my linux fstab: /dev/hda2 / ext2 defaults 1 1 /dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/hda5 /bsd ufs ufstype=44bsd 1 2 /dev/hda7 /bsd/usr ufs ufstype=44bsd 1 2 /dev/hda8 /home ufs ufstype=44bsd 1 2 /dev/hda9 /bsd/usr/obj ufs ufstype=44bsd 1 2 /dev/hda1 /dos vfat defaults 1 2 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy ext2 noauto 0 0 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,ro linux kernels also include a working UFS, though you may run into problems when writing to ufs partitions. Note the ufstype=44bsd. If you forget that in your mounts, it will fail. Depending upon your installation, you may get a failure message, or you will have to dig through /var/log/ to find it. Running Linux binaries under OpenBSD ------------------------------------ You just have to recompile your BSD kernel with COMPAT_LINUX, and set up /emul/linux as explained in compat_linux(1). If you run GENERIC, you don't have to recompile anything, as this is the default setup. It's a good idea to mount your Linux file system under another point, then make symbolic links so that you can control what gets used precisely. As you have a complete linux system, don't bother with the ports emul/linux_lib entry: it's only a set of Linux libraries for people who don't have a Linux system running. A small detail that may cause problems: uname still says `OpenBSD', even under Linux compatibility. The reason behind that is that we don't want netscape to tell it was run from a Linux box, when it is used under OpenBSD. Some programs, for instance maple, do depend on uname answering `Linux'. For maple, this is straightforward: you just have to fudge /usr/local/maple/bin/maple.system.type to check OpenBSD in the same class with Linux. Similar shell scripts are easy to fix. Binary programs that don't run suid can be coerced by using LD_PRELOAD. As a rule, this should be achieved on a program-by-program basis. The more networking programs that do tell they're running under OpenBSD, the merrier ! A word of caution: brain-damaged linux installations ---------------------------------------------------- I just reinstalled the linux side of my laptop using redhat 5.2. This CD does insist on having TWO linux partitions: one root partition, and one swap partition (even though I have 32 Mb of memory, largely enough for the installation). Since it uses a 2.0.36 kernel, it does NOT handle BSD disklabels, so I couldn't tell it to use my swap area (I have this bad feeling that distributed 2.2 boot kernels won't include BSD disklabel handling anyway). Instead, I had to back my last OpenBSD partition up, fiddle with my fdisk setup to feed the last cylinder as a swap partition to their brain dead install CD. Then fetch the latest kernel source to the linux side, and recompile to get a fully working linux setup. Finally, reset the fdisk/disklabel to its normal state, and get the backed-up partition to its normal location. Another word of caution: getting enough rope to hang yourself ------------------------------------------------------------- One previous version of this document got into much nastier details, and gave installation instructions that were thoroughly dangerous. - various tools may yield distinct views of your disk. These will match, most often, but not always. Don't get confused if various fdisk, disklabel utilities don't yield the same information. Generally, sector sizes and offsets should match. - try to keep various OSes segregated to their areas. Don't depend on OpenBSD information to be correct for your linux setup and vice-versa. Some weird problem with the brain-damaged PC architecture may force us to tweak things so that OpenBSD will work seamlessly everywhere. Compatibility with weird tricks is not a priority. This being said, you will have noticed by now that the OpenBSD disklabel is just another description of your hard-disk. It is almost completely independent from the MBR description (it just has to be on the right sector for the boot process to find it). You can get into trouble if things don't match. Let it live within its MBR partition, unless you're completely sure you know what you are doing, and don't expect there will always be someone to get you out of trouble. If your setup is really too weird, no-one can help. As far as the boot process goes, I think lilo allows you to boot from ANY partition recorded in the MBR, including extended partitions. Several bsd on the same disk MAY be possible, but will be harder to manage: - it is better if disklabels match, - linux will obey the first disklabel it finds, try to ensure this is OpenBSD disklabel, it can describe more partitions than the others, - other BSD may get confused with each other data. Normally, the A5/A6 split ensures that Net/Free won't get mixed up with OpenBSD, - FreeBSD and NetBSD will probably get confused with each other, Finally, how much disk space do you have anyway ? Do you really need to cram that many OSes on the same disk ? Put them on separate disks rather. If you reach that stage, you'd better be ready to hack at the linux kernel to recognize several disklabels, for instance, or generally know what you're doing.