From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Feb 4 8:53: 9 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from ptavv.es.net (ptavv.es.net [198.128.4.29]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D040937B417 for ; Mon, 4 Feb 2002 08:52:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from ptavv (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ptavv.es.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 86EF15D0C; Mon, 4 Feb 2002 08:52:59 -0800 (PST) To: "Scott Gerhardt" Cc: "FreeBSD" Subject: Re: Kernel Question In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 04 Feb 2002 10:31:36 CST." Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 1.8) Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 08:52:59 -0800 From: "Kevin Oberman" Message-Id: <20020204165259.86EF15D0C@ptavv.es.net> Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > From: "Scott Gerhardt" > Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 10:31:36 -0600 > Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > > I just installed 4.5-Release and rebuilt my custom kernel. > When checking dmesg and /var/log messages I noticed the errors (see at > bottom of message): > I noticed that /boot/kernel.conf had the following entries: > > psm0 > sn0 > lnc0 > ie0 > e0 > ed0 > cs0 > bt0 > aic0 > aha0 > adv0 > q > > These devices do not exist on my system so I deleted the entries from > kernel.conf and now the system boots up fine with no errors. > > I may have added these entries by accident during the install when I > "deleted" the conflicting devices from the Kernel Configuration. > > What is the purpose of /boot/kernel.conf and should the file be empty or > even exist? These entries should have been in the form "di psm0". They are created by the visual configuration operation at installation time to disable devices in the GENERIC kernel which might cause conflicts and keep the GENERIC kernel from booting properly. There is no man page for kernel.conf, but here is a message I just sent out to another person who was baffled by this poorly documented tool: There seems to be no centralized documentation on the kernel.conf file. Maybe, some day when I actually have a bit of free time, I will try writing a man page for it. /boot/kernel.conf is a file of commands to the loader that can adjust the way the system loads. Among the things you can do with it are: disable /enable devices. This allows the use of devices marked "disable" in the kernel configuration as we as disabling any device that would otherwise be enabled. It can also supply/override any of the configuration parameters in the kernel configuration file such as irq, iomem, port, etc. This is especially important for loadable modules that need this information to operate correctly. Finally, kernel.conf, as a whole, is enabled by the presence of userconfig_script_load="YES" in /boot/loader.conf. This is only documented in very cryptic fashion in the loader.conf man page. userconfig_script_load (``NO'') If set to ``YES'', will load the userconfig data. R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message