Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 01:41:51 -0800 (PST) From: Julian Elischer <julian@current1.whistle.com> To: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Nextboot(8) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95.961213012656.23959A-100000@current1.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <199612130722.SAA24286@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
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On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Bruce Evans wrote: > > It has a man page and should be easy to set up by compiling biosboot > with the option for it. However, I project nuking it. I'm allergic to > magic spare sectors. They are worse than magic builtin sectors (like > the label sector which is sometimes in the middle of the bootstrap). > Well I think that is something you are welcome to do as soon as you can replace the functionality.. (better suggestions gladly accepted). 1/ nextboot refuses to write the block if it is within a slice, so it should not be possible to clobber important info, and it's not compulsory to use it. 2/ I need the bootblocks to MODIFY whatever is there so I can detect failing boots and do something different next time. 3/ I do NOT trust the bootblocks to fetch that information from the disklabel and write back a modified disklabel block. So block 2 if it's available and has the right magic numbers seems as safe as I can get.. I have plans on nuking your diskslice code too.. as soon as I can replace it with something that works as well.. ;) (i.e. don't hold your breath :) we're all forced to do hacks to get around teh PC architecture.. I have the nextboot code running on all the interjets. that will be several thousand machines in a matter of a few months.. so it should be pretty tested soon :) julian
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