Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 05:29:50 -0700 From: "Philip J. Koenig" <pjklist@ekahuna.com> To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: loader.conf and boot questions/ideas Message-ID: <20020524122951618.AAA399@empty1.ekahuna.com@pc02.ekahuna.com>
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I was looking through /boot/defaults/loader.conf and
/boot/loader.conf on a box today.
One thing that strikes me is that it seems like there are a bunch of
references in there - which are often invalid for a specific box -
that it seems to me at various times have bitten me, ie when
something is messed up in fstab or in one of the boot config files
somewhere and it goes back to some "nonsensical" default setting
which doesn't make sense. (ie trying to boot off a drive that doesn't
exist)
Is it a crazy idea to consider having the system automatically update
some of these parameters after the system is first installed, to
provide more realistic "defaults" for that specific box? (ie for
variables like "rootdev" or "dumpdev" etc.)
Another place I find something like this is in disklabel: ie if you
install a 2nd HD with the intention of using it to upgrade the
existing one, partition and disklabel it, copy the contents of the
original disk to it, then remove the original disk -- disklabel
forever-more continues to refer to it internally with the device name
it had when it was first partitioned as disk 2. (I'm talking about
the 3rd line called "disk" if you do "disklabel -r <devicename>")
I've gotten really confused at times when it keeps referring to a
disk that I *know* isn't there -- or even trying to boot from this
"nonexistent" disk (ie if fstab gets messed up) -- because it appears
to be picking up this info out of disklabel, which is no longer valid
after one of the original drives was removed.
I've also seen boxes where the FreeBSD boot manager continued showing
a device that *used* to be available to boot from, but which no
longer exists. I've never quite figured out why it insists a disk is
there that isn't, or how to edit that list. ("boot0cfg -m?" It's not
very well explained in the manpage, or maybe it's just not very
flexible.. ie what do you do if you want to show slice 1, 2 and 4 but
not 3, and do these "slices" refer to non-BSD partitions too?)
Just curious what folks think.
Thx,
Phil
--
Philip J. Koenig pjklist@ekahuna.com
Electric Kahuna Systems -- Computers & Communications for the New Millenium
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