mounting "partitions"

[Bill Hacker]

George Georgalis wrote:

I'm having difficulty "mouning a file on the loopback device"...

I created a file, (from linux to dfly) like so:

dd if=/dev/hda1 | ssh dfly "dd of=/usr/hda1.dd"

I'd like to (as expressed in linux world)

mount -olo /usr/hda1.dd /mnt && rsync --delete -avessh /mnt/ linux:/mnt/hda1/

the filesystem happens to be fat32, so I guess I need to enable that in
the kernel, and what else? I don't see lo as a mount option... (for now
I've just dd-ed back the whole thing)
// George
*BSD's  'mount' command wants a filesystem type when not ufs, and 
sometimes even when it is..

So a '-t msdos' just before the '-o {option list}' seems in order.

You may also need to fsck before mount will succeed.

BUT - I don't recognize the 'lo' (loopback device) option as belonging 
where you have placed it.

- seems to me that it should ether be part of a /dev/~ descriptor or a 
'special node'
. .. man mount, then man mount_msdos and several others listed near the 
bottom of that file.
('struth I am not even sure you can use 'lo' for that at all.  Never 
seen it done that way.)

You may also need something like: /dev/hda1{s1[n]}, not just /dev/hda1
if the disk has been sliced or partitioned.
man fdisk, man disklabel for tools to view what that drive looks like to 
*BSD.

FAT(all 'viable' variants, AFAIK) is in the kernel already (boot 
floppies, legacy, etc....)

dd, of course operates at a lower level - a block is a block (though it 
has more options than PIP <g>).

HTH,

Bill