From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 18 08:32:10 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 008FA16A422 for ; Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:32:09 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from molter@tin.it) Received: from ams-iport-1.cisco.com (ams-iport-1.cisco.com [144.254.224.140]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F4D343D46 for ; Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:32:08 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from molter@tin.it) Received: from ams-core-1.cisco.com ([144.254.224.150]) by ams-iport-1.cisco.com with ESMTP; 18 Oct 2005 10:32:08 +0200 Received: from xbh-ams-331.emea.cisco.com (xbh-ams-331.cisco.com [144.254.231.71]) by ams-core-1.cisco.com (8.12.10/8.12.6) with ESMTP id j9I8W2HJ020535 for ; Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:32:05 +0200 (MEST) Received: from xfe-ams-332.cisco.com ([144.254.231.73]) by xbh-ams-331.emea.cisco.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.0); Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:31:44 +0200 Received: from barbapapa.cisco.com ([144.254.53.64]) by xfe-ams-332.cisco.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.0); Tue, 18 Oct 2005 01:31:44 -0700 Received: by barbapapa.cisco.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 31CB6122; Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:31:44 +0200 (CEST) From: Marco Molteni To: hackers@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:31:43 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.8.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200510181031.43863.molter@tin.it> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 18 Oct 2005 08:31:44.0682 (UTC) FILETIME=[5F58A8A0:01C5D3BE] Cc: Subject: diskless: meaning of conf/base ? X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:32:10 -0000 Hi, lately I have been playing with diskless booting with 6.x and 7.x. I understand how the whole /conf overriding mechanism works, and I think it is useful. What I am missing is the usefulness of conf/base, especially conf/base/etc, that diskless(8) suggests to fill with the same etc in $disklessroot/etc. Let me say it in another way: conf/default/etc/ contains the overrides conf/base/etc/ contains the base etc that is overridden by the files in default/etc since anyway below $disklessroot we have an already existing etc: $disklessroot/ect/, and since the normal way to initialize conf/base/etc is: cp -Rp $disklessroot/etc/ $disklessroot/conf/base/etc So we get 3 copies of etc that need to be kept synchronized: /etc $disklessroot/etc $disklessroot/conf/base/etc why do we need $disklessroot/conf/base/etc at all? I know that there is the possibility to use conf/base/etc/diskless_remount to avoid filling conf/base/etc, but anyway, my question remains. diskless_remount could be moved to, say, /conf. thanks marco