is it possible to install two instances of FreeBSD on TPM desktop?

L

linuxlover

I tried to install FreeBSD 14 release again (on a separate partition) on my desktop. I am successfully creating two boot entries in BIOS. FreeBSD, and FreeBSD 2.
But no matter which entry I choose, the system is booting up with the older installation.
I tried to get help of chatgpt but all of its suggestions were failures.

updating/boot/loader.conf to vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:nvd0p4" gave errors during boot:
Starting file system checks:
/dev/nvd0p4: file system clean, skipping checks
Cant open /dev/ndaop1: unexpected inconsistency, run fsck-msdosfs manually.
The following file system had an unexpected inconsistency:
msdosfs: /dev/nda0p1(/boot/efi)
Aborying boot (sending SIGTERM to parent)!
<timestamp> - init 1 -- /bin/sh on /etc/rc terminated abnormally, going to single user mode
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh:

no matter what me and chatgpt did, i cant install two instances of freebsd on separate partitions on same disk.

please help me doing that!
 
Not sure it's actually affecting or not, default disk driver of 14.0 is nda(4), already not nvd(4).
What happens if you change vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:nvd0p4" to vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:nda0p4" in your /boot/loader.conf?
You need all nvd to nda in /etc/fstab, too, if any.
Just simpy changing nvd to nda should usually work.
 
linuxlover said:
I tried to install FreeBSD 14 release again (on a separate partition) on my desktop. I am successfully creating two boot entries in BIOS. FreeBSD, and FreeBSD 2.
But no matter which entry I choose, the system is booting up with the older installation.
I tried to get help of chatgpt but all of its suggestions were failures.

updating/boot/loader.conf to vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:nvd0p4" gave errors during boot:
Starting file system checks:
/dev/nvd0p4: file system clean, skipping checks
Cant open /dev/ndaop1: unexpected inconsistency, run fsck-msdosfs manually.
The following file system had an unexpected inconsistency:
msdosfs: /dev/nda0p1(/boot/efi)
Aborying boot (sending SIGTERM to parent)!
<timestamp> - init 1 -- /bin/sh on /etc/rc terminated abnormally, going to single user mode
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh:

no matter what me and chatgpt did, i cant install two instances of freebsd on separate partitions on same disk.

please help me doing that!
Click to expand...
T-Aoki said:
Not sure it's actually affecting or not, default disk driver of 14.0 is nda(4), already not nvd(4).
What happens if you change vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:nvd0p4" to vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:nda0p4" in your /boot/loader.conf?
You need all nvd to nda in /etc/fstab, too, if any.
Just simpy changing nvd to nda should usually work.
Click to expand...
my mistake. one is freebsd 13, new is 14.
 
I'm not completely sure, whether the FreeBSD boot loader is built to really support this use case. Maybe boot0cfg() might be able to do the trick.
Alternatively, maybe you can achieve the same thing with using boot environments? This way, you'd even be able to share your home directory across the different FreeBSD instances.
 
linuxlover said:
Rich (BB code): 
Cant open /dev/ndaop1: unexpected inconsistency, run fsck-msdosfs manually.
The following file system had an unexpected inconsistency:
msdosfs: /dev/nda0p1(/boot/efi)
Aborying boot (sending SIGTERM to parent)!
<timestamp> - init 1 -- /bin/sh on /etc/rc terminated abnormally, going to single user mode
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh:
Click to expand...
I know that error message very well.

This is due the /etc/fstab entry of the ESP (Efi System Partition) /boot/efi. The device name of the ESP set in /etc/fstab, /dev/nda0p1 in this case, does not correspond to the actual device name of the current system, therefor the boot process is interrupted. The system stops at the single user mode, to give the system administrator the possibility to correct the issue.

Also, it looks like one of the installed system is 13.x, using the nvd(4) driver (nvdN device names), on UFS
linuxlover said:
Starting file system checks:
/dev/nvd0p4: file system clean, skipping checks
Click to expand...
Starting file system checks , file system clean messages are a indication of fsck(8) on UFS.

And the other is 14.0, using the nda(4) driver (ndaN device names)
linuxlover said:
The following file system had an unexpected inconsistency:
msdosfs: /dev/nda0p1(/boot/efi)
Click to expand...

To make a proper recommendation), at Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh: press Enter, execute gpart show -p.

Show us also efibootmgr -v

Post the output in your next posting. Transcript of the output or a image, taken by smartphone.
 
Assuming you are booting with UEFI boot, as you seem to have ESP.

There are patches for boot1.efi at PR 207940 to add support for selecting partition/ZFS pool to boot from.
Whichever of latest 2 patches would be applicable and work.

If you want to try, choose one of them. Do not attempt to apply both.
The difference of 2 patches are how candidates of partitions/pools are displayed. This functionality is not yet implemented on defauld loader.efi.

But you would need to resolve GEOM (device) name problem first, as I wrote in my previous post.
 
I removed the second installation, and its boot entry. Then I installed second instance of freebsd: 13.2 release. Now both the installations are 13.2 release. The new installation created a second boot entry in my UEFI bios. but no matter what I select at boot time the older installation is booting up. what should I do?
 
linuxlover said:
I removed the second installation, and its boot entry. Then I installed second instance of freebsd: 13.2 release. Now both the installations are 13.2 release. The new installation created a second boot entry in my UEFI bios. but no matter what I select at boot time the older installation is booting up. what should I do?
Click to expand...
Is your vfs.root.mountfrom in your /boot/loader.conf of new installation correctly pointing to the partition of the new installation?

Is /etc/fstab of your new installation correctly specifying what new installation actually wants?

I'm assuming you are using ufs as of your first post, but if you want to use Root-on-ZFS in the future, beware not to create pools having same name on single computer. It may cause fatal confusion.
 
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