Reading PCBSD Files While In Ubuntu

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.

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

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...

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?

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

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*).

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.

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).

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"]Thanks HymnToLife, I didn't know that was the usual practice,.... learn something every day.[/FONT]