OpenBSD Manual Partitioning at Installation

When installing OpenBSD, at the partitioning section, the installer asks which option to choose:

1. Use (A)uto layout
2. (E)dit auto layout
3. Create (C)ustom layout

The first "a" is a good choice to rely on the default settings and save operation time at installation.

I sometimes, however, like to choose manual partitioning.
For example, using storage-limited virtual machines, I want to let the sizes of the specific mount points such as /var and /home as big as possible.
At such a time, "e" or "c" is also a good choice.

• "e": Use auto layout but configure it.
• "c": Create my own layout from the beginning.

The choices are followed by disklabel running:

We can manage partitions via these commands:

? | h # show help 2.7G p # print partitions a [Partition Label] # add partition d [Partition Label] # delete partition z # delete all partitions x # exit & lose changes q # quit & save changes 

Today, I created OpenBSD vm image for Google Compute Engine (GCE) whose storage size is limited to 30 GBytes.
I changed mount points and their sizes like these operations:

> a a # add parition labeled as 'a' offset: [64] # just click Enter key size: [62910476] 1.0G # set partition size FS type: [4.2BSD] # just click Enter key mount point: [none] / # set mount point > a b # add parition labeled as 'b' offset: [2104512] # just click Enter key size: [60806028] 1.1G FS type: [swap] # just click Enter key # skip 'c' > a d # add parition labeled as 'd' ... > p # check partitions in the end > q # save changes and exit 

Finally, I changed the whole disk like this:

Thus, I built OpenBSD on GCE and launched a small database server with its storage big enough for my usage : )

Updated:

These assignments are also good for a tiny virtual machine when serving with using Google Cloud SQL as database : )