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Message-ID: <3C875A5C.53949862@FreeBSD.org>
Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 14:17:32 +0200
From: Maxim Sobolev <sobomax@FreeBSD.org>
Organization: Vega International Capital
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To: Michael Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.org>
Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org, audit@FreeBSD.org, re@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: Extending loader(8) for loading kerels/modules split across several 
 disks
References: <200203070940.g279eTa04750@mass.dis.org>
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Michael Smith wrote:
> 
> > > > Please review attached patch, which adds long overdue feature to our
> > > > loader(8), allowing it to load sequence of files as  a single object.
> > >
> > > I don't like this.  I would much rather see support for 'split' files
> > > implemented as a stacking filesystem layer like the gzip support, with
> > > the simple recognition of 'foo.gz.aa' as the first part of a split
> > > version of 'foo.gz', which in turn is recognised as a compressed version
> > > of 'foo'.
> >
> > I am curious how in this case the layer is going to know how many
> > parts the file contains?
> 
> The simple way to do it is to keep asking for more parts until there are
> no more.
> 
> You can take the NetBSD approach of wrapping the file in a multipart tar
> archive.
> 
> Or a more elegant method involves the use of a control file.
> 
> eg. the splitfs code, when asked to open "foo" looks for "foo.split"
> which is a text file containing a list of filenames and media names, eg.
> 
> foo.aa "Kernel floppy 1"
> foo.ab "Kernel floppy 2"
> foo.ac "Kernel and modules floppy"
> 
> For each file segment, the process is:
> 
>  - try to open the file
>  - prompt "please insert the disk labelled <whatever>'"
>  - try to open the file
>  - return error
> 
> At any rate, my key point is that the splitting should be invisible, and
> *definitely* not pushed up into the loader.

Ok, sounds reasonably. I'll try to reimplement the feature this way.

Thank you for suggestion.

-Maxim

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