From owner-freebsd-current Wed Nov 11 03:09:30 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id DAA02247 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Wed, 11 Nov 1998 03:09:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ceia.nordier.com (m1-55-dbn.dial-up.net [196.34.155.55]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id DAA02210; Wed, 11 Nov 1998 03:08:15 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rnordier@nordier.com) Received: (from rnordier@localhost) by ceia.nordier.com (8.8.7/8.6.12) id NAA00886; Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:05:24 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier Message-Id: <199811111105.NAA00886@ceia.nordier.com> Subject: Re: Is it soup yet? :-) In-Reply-To: from Chuck Robey at "Nov 10, 98 07:09:23 pm" To: chuckr@mat.net (Chuck Robey) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:05:17 +0200 (SAT) Cc: mike@smith.net.au, jkh@zippy.cdrom.com, current@FreeBSD.ORG, peter@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL31 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Chuck Robey wrote: > I don't know enough about the bootblocks ... I just followed Mike's > steps in getting myself installed ok, but is it possible to write a > program that could probe the boot disk, read the bootblocks, and decide > if they need upgrading ... and if they do, printing a warning message, > and then refuse to install the new kernel? > > If this could be done, you know this will save a *lot* of complaints > about insufficient warnings. You could warn until you're hoarse, > they'll *still* miss it, unless the build process itself screams at It'd be reasonably simple to do a dd/sh script to detect whether the new (/sys/boot/i386/boot2) bootblocks are installed. But detecting whether the old boot blocks are up to the task of loading boot/loader is probably a non-starter. Don't think one could really refuse to install the kernel. Though a default option to preserve a /kernel.aout (if otherwise no aout kernel would be available in /) may be an easy route, if we must protect folks from themselves. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message