Based on kernel version 2.6.26. Page generated on 2008-07-16 21:12 EST.
1 BFS FILESYSTEM FOR LINUX 2 ======================== 3 4 The BFS filesystem is used by SCO UnixWare OS for the /stand slice, which 5 usually contains the kernel image and a few other files required for the 6 boot process. 7 8 In order to access /stand partition under Linux you obviously need to 9 know the partition number and the kernel must support UnixWare disk slices 10 (CONFIG_UNIXWARE_DISKLABEL config option). However BFS support does not 11 depend on having UnixWare disklabel support because one can also mount 12 BFS filesystem via loopback: 13 14 # losetup /dev/loop0 stand.img 15 # mount -t bfs /dev/loop0 /mnt/stand 16 17 where stand.img is a file containing the image of BFS filesystem. 18 When you have finished using it and umounted you need to also deallocate 19 /dev/loop0 device by: 20 21 # losetup -d /dev/loop0 22 23 You can simplify mounting by just typing: 24 25 # mount -t bfs -o loop stand.img /mnt/stand 26 27 this will allocate the first available loopback device (and load loop.o 28 kernel module if necessary) automatically. If the loopback driver is not 29 loaded automatically, make sure that your kernel is compiled with kmod 30 support (CONFIG_KMOD) enabled. Beware that umount will not 31 deallocate /dev/loopN device if /etc/mtab file on your system is a 32 symbolic link to /proc/mounts. You will need to do it manually using 33 "-d" switch of losetup(8). Read losetup(8) manpage for more info. 34 35 To create the BFS image under UnixWare you need to find out first which 36 slice contains it. The command prtvtoc(1M) is your friend: 37 38 # prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c0b0t0d0s0 39 40 (assuming your root disk is on target=0, lun=0, bus=0, controller=0). Then you 41 look for the slice with tag "STAND", which is usually slice 10. With this 42 information you can use dd(1) to create the BFS image: 43 44 # umount /stand 45 # dd if=/dev/rdsk/c0b0t0d0sa of=stand.img bs=512 46 47 Just in case, you can verify that you have done the right thing by checking 48 the magic number: 49 50 # od -Ad -tx4 stand.img | more 51 52 The first 4 bytes should be 0x1badface. 53 54 If you have any patches, questions or suggestions regarding this BFS 55 implementation please contact the author: 56 57 Tigran Aivazian <tigran[AT]aivazian.fsnet.co[DOT]uk>