NAME

fmthard - populate VTOC on hard disks

SYNOPSIS

/usr/sbin/fmthard [-c core_disk_type]  [-d  data]  [-i]  [-s
datafile]
[-n volume_name] /dev/rdsk/[ct]?d?s?

DESCRIPTION

The fmthard command creates (or updates) the VTOC (Volume Table of Contents) on hard disks. The /dev/rdsk/[ct]?d?s? file must be the character special file of the device where the new VTOC is to be installed.

OPTIONS

The following options apply to fmthard:

-d data

The data argument of this option is a string representing the information for a particular partition in the current VTOC. The string must be of the format part:tag:flag:start:size where part is the partition number, tag is the ID tag of the partition, flag is the set of permission flags, start is the starting sector number of the partition, and size is the number of sectors in the partition. See the description of the datafile below for more information on these fields.

-i Lets the command create the desired VTOC table, but prints the information to standard output instead of modifying the VTOC on the disk.

-n volume_name

Allows the disk to be given a volume_name up to 8 characters long.

-c core_disk_type

The three core disk configurations are: "0" (single disk configuration), "1" (first disk of a dual disk configuration), and "2" (second disk of a dual disk configuration). Core disk configuration requires disk size to be at least 32MB.

     Disk Configuration       PartitionUsed For
     0              0         root
                    1         swap
                    2         usr
                    8         var
                    9         home (remaining space)

     1              0         root
                    1         swap
                    8         home (remaining space)

     2              2         usr
                    8         var
                    a         home2 (remaining space)

-s datafile

The VTOC is populated according to a datafile created by the user. The datafile format is described below. This option causes all of the disk partition timestamp fields to be set to zero.

If no options are given, a default VTOC is created with partition a (see the description of the -c option, above) as the only mountable partition. Every VTOC generated by fmthard will also have partition 6 (the whole disk) and partition 7 (the boot partition). Partition 6 is the only partition that can overlap others.

The datafile contains one specification line for each partition, starting with partition 0. Each line is delimited by a new-line character (\n). If the first character of a line is an asterisk (*), the line is treated as a comment. Each line is composed of entries that are position-dependent, separated by "white space" and having the following format:

partition  tag  flag  starting_sector  size_in_sectors

where the entries have the following values.

partition The partition number: 0-15 decimal or 0x0-0xf hexadecimal.

tag              The partition tag:  a two-digit hex number.
                 The  following  are  reserved  codes:  0x01
                 (V_BOOT),  0x02  (V_ROOT),  0x03  (V_SWAP),
                 0x04   (V_USR),   0x05   (V_BACKUP),   0x06
                 (V_STAND), 0x07 (V_VAR) and 0x08(V_HOME).

flag The flag allows a partition to be flagged as unmountable or read only, the masks being: V_UNMNT 0x01, and V_RONLY 0x10. For mountable partitions use 0x00.

starting sector The sector number (decimal) on which the partition starts.

size in sectors The number (decimal) of sectors occupied by the partition. Note that you can save the output of a prtvtoc command to a file, edit the file, and use it as the datafile argument to the -s option.

SEE ALSO

prtvtoc(1M), newboot(1M).

NOTES

Special care should be exercised when overwriting an existing VTOC, as incorrect entries could result in current data being inaccessible. As a precaution, save the old VTOC.

After using fmthard on a bootable drive, you must execute newboot on that drive. newboot should also be executed after mirroring any partition on a bootable disk (executing either sysadm rootsetup or sysadm mirror). If newboot is not executed after fmthard, then the drive will become unbootable and may require a partial restore. Do not do a partial restore while root and /usr are mirrored. When using the -s option, the user must allocate at least two sectors, beginning with sector 0, for the VTOC. This is normally designated as partition 7. Failure to allocate space for the VTOC may result in overwriting the VTOC, thereby destroying the disk partitioning information.