xref: /dragonfly/sbin/disklabel32/disklabel32.5 (revision cae2835b)
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31.\"     @(#)disklabel.5.5	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
32.\" $FreeBSD: src/sbin/disklabel/disklabel.5,v 1.7.2.4 2002/08/21 18:58:16 trhodes Exp $
33.\" $DragonFly: src/sbin/disklabel/disklabel.5,v 1.6 2008/08/21 21:08:08 thomas Exp $
34.\"
35.Dd August 21, 2008
36.Dt DISKLABEL32 5
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm disklabel32
40.Nd 32 bit disk pack label
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.In sys/disklabel.h
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44Each disk or disk pack on a system may contain a disk label
45which provides detailed information
46about the geometry of the disk and the partitions into which the disk
47is divided.
48It should be initialized when the disk is formatted,
49and may be changed later with the
50.Xr disklabel32 8
51program.
52This information is used by the system disk driver and by the bootstrap
53program to determine how to program the drive
54and where to find the file systems on the disk partitions.
55Additional information is used by the file system in order
56to use the disk most efficiently and to locate important file system information.
57The description of each partition contains an identifier for the partition
58type (standard file system, swap area, etc.).
59The file system updates the in-core copy of the label if it contains
60incomplete information about the file system.
61.Pp
62The label is located in sector number
63.Dv LABELSECTOR
64of the drive, usually sector 0 where it may be found
65without any information about the disk geometry.
66It is at an offset
67.Dv LABELOFFSET
68from the beginning of the sector, to allow room for the initial bootstrap.
69The disk sector containing the label is normally made read-only
70so that it is not accidentally overwritten by pack-to-pack copies
71or swap operations;
72the
73.Dv DIOCWLABEL
74.Xr ioctl 2 ,
75which is done as needed by the
76.Xr disklabel32 8
77program.
78.Pp
79A copy of the in-core label for a disk can be obtained with the
80.Dv DIOCGDINFO
81.Xr ioctl 2 ;
82this works with a file descriptor for a block or character (``raw'') device
83for any partition of the disk.
84The in-core copy of the label is set by the
85.Dv DIOCSDINFO
86.Xr ioctl 2 .
87The offset of a partition cannot generally be changed while it is open,
88nor can it be made smaller while it is open.
89One exception is that any change is allowed if no label was found
90on the disk, and the driver was able to construct only a skeletal label
91without partition information.
92Finally, the
93.Dv DIOCWDINFO
94.Xr ioctl 2
95operation sets the in-core label and then updates the on-disk label;
96there must be an existing label on the disk for this operation to succeed.
97Thus, the initial label for a disk or disk pack must be installed
98by writing to the raw disk.
99All of these operations are normally done using
100.Xr disklabel32 8 .
101.Pp
102The format of the disk label is specified in
103.In sys/disklabel32.h .
104.Sh SEE ALSO
105.Xr disklabel64 5 ,
106.Xr disktab 5 ,
107.Xr disklabel32 8
108