From owner-freebsd-current Sat Jan 16 11:30:46 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA13462 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Sat, 16 Jan 1999 11:30:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from jli.com (jli.com [199.2.111.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id LAA13454 for ; Sat, 16 Jan 1999 11:30:44 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from trost@cloud.rain.com) Received: (qmail 24962 invoked by uid 4); 16 Jan 1999 19:30:41 -0000 Received: (qmail 30113 invoked from network); 16 Jan 1999 19:21:42 -0000 Received: from localhost.cloud.rain.com (HELO grey.cloud.rain.com) (127.0.0.1) by localhost.cloud.rain.com with SMTP; 16 Jan 1999 19:21:42 -0000 To: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Can the bootloader create a file or set a flag in the bootblocks? References: <199901151746.JAA01235@dingo.cdrom.com> In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 15 Jan 1999 09:46:44 PST. <199901151746.JAA01235@dingo.cdrom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <30109.916514501.1@grey.cloud.rain.com> Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 11:21:42 -0800 Message-ID: <30110.916514502@grey.cloud.rain.com> From: Bill Trost Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Mike Smith writes: > It would be kind of cool if when managing a remote system if > /kernel failed to boot, then on the next boot, the loader will > fire up /kernel.old, or a /kernel.somethingorother. We're trying to work out a clean way of managing that sort of persistent state that doesn't involve nasty hacks like the 'nextboot' code did. It's kinda tricky if you don't want "write" implemented in all your filesystems (bloat!) Maybe I don't understand the problem here, but something akin to how kernel configuration changes are handled seems like a good way to deal with this problem. /boot/loader could stuff something into memory (sort of like the way you can stuff a splash screen into memory), and a user-level program can read that information and stuff it wherever it needs to be stuffed. That may be a little hard with tftp, but with most of the other media types it seems like it should be relatively straightforward. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message