From owner-freebsd-stable  Sat Oct 24 13:02:26 1998
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From: Luigi Rizzo <luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it>
Message-Id: <199810241753.SAA16763@labinfo.iet.unipi.it>
Subject: Re: Request for change...
To: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith)
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:53:16 +0100 (MET)
Cc: mike@smith.net.au, stable@FreeBSD.ORG
In-Reply-To: <199810241908.MAA05550@dingo.cdrom.com> from "Mike Smith" at Oct 24, 98 12:08:17 pm
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> >   very near the beginning of /etc/rc, figure out if this is a
> >   diskless machine and set a variable.
> > 
> >   make fsck/mount/swapon contitional on this variable, and call
> >   some alternate procedure from say rc.diskless for these actions.
> 
> That's getting closer.  I still can't help but think that this is the 
> wrong way to do it; the process should be driven by the configuration 
> data, not by policy embedded in code.
>
> Why should the fsck/mount/swapon be conditionalised in more than one
> location?  You can already turn all of these off in /etc/fstab.

ok, the context is to serve diskless machines with a shared readonly
root. Here, the only config data you can have is the hostname, which
you can easily map into a private config onto a writable mfs partition.

Maybe you are right with your suggestions but i have one doubt: when
you execute the line

	mount -u -o rw /

in /etc/rc, you use the (readonly) /etc/fstab which might be invalid
for some or all hosts. Maybe i should try to setup the mfs /var and
fill it up with the per-machine data at the very beginning, right after

    HOME=/; export HOME
    PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin
    export PATH

so that all the rest is consistent with a regular setup ?

	cheers
	luigi

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