MOUSECTL(8) System Manager's Manual MOUSECTL(8)

mousectl — install and recover a MOUSE system

mousectl bootstrap ROOT EFI

mousectl rollback

mousectl is the live-system installer and recovery command for MOUSE. It writes one phase line at a time to standard output. During early boot, PID 1 has already bound standard output to /dev/console.

The no-argument zfs-bootstrap invocation used by early boot is internal and is not part of this interface. If normal boot finds zroot/ROOT/mouse@mouse-install, early bootstrap rolls back that interrupted installation, including a pending EFI payload if activation began, exports zroot, and stops in the bootstrap emergency shell; reboot there to use the restored payload.

ROOT EFI
Install the World carried by the live ISO. ROOT must be a block-device path for the GPT wedge named ; EFI must be a different block-device path for the wedge named . Raw device paths are accepted and converted to their block devices. Both partitions must be unmounted.

The command creates the zroot pool and its standard datasets, extracts World below /altroot, and formats and fills the EFI system partition. An existing zroot pool is refused. The selected root partition and EFI system partition are destructive targets; their prior contents are not preserved. On success, the new root remains mounted at /altroot for the caller to configure and enter.

Restore a prior MOUSE root from the recovery environment. The command refuses to run from a normal boot. It requires a usable mouse-install or mouse-previous snapshot and, when boot payload recovery is pending, a complete retained EFI payload. An interrupted mouse-install snapshot is selected before mouse-previous; the latter is deliberately restored only by this explicit recovery action. It restores the root dataset and the matching netbsd, EFI loader, and boot configuration files. An interrupted rollback resumes automatically on the next normal boot. It does not roll back /etc, /home, /var, or /usr/local.

MOUSE root dataset.
Pre-install snapshot used to recover an interrupted installation.
Retained previous-system snapshot.
/altroot
Temporary installation or recovery mount point.

The mousectl utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

build(7), installation(7), zfs(8), zpool(8)

MOUSE August 31, 2026 MOUSECTL(8)