From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 4 08:53:26 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95F2C37B401 for ; Wed, 4 Jun 2003 08:53:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp4.server.rpi.edu (smtp4.server.rpi.edu [128.113.2.4]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BD28B43F3F for ; Wed, 4 Jun 2003 08:53:25 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.netel.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by smtp4.server.rpi.edu (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h54FrMPx004349; Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:53:24 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: drosih@mail.rpi.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3EDDF732.1060606@tcoip.com.br> References: <20030603113927.I71313@cvs.imp.ch> <16092.35144.948752.554975@grasshopper.cs.duke.edu> <20030603115432.EGLB13328.out002.verizon.net@kokeb.ambesa.net> <20030603122226.BGPM11703.pop018.verizon.net@kokeb.ambesa.net> <3EDD81A4.B6F83135@mindspring.com> <3EDDF732.1060606@tcoip.com.br> Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:53:21 -0400 To: "Daniel C. Sobral" , Terry Lambert From: Garance A Drosihn Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.28 cc: arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Making a dynamically-linked root X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 15:53:26 -0000 At 10:42 AM -0300 6/4/03, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: >So, I did not have any single point of failure for single >file corruption before. Now I do. But you claim there was >not significant increase, statistically speaking. Could >you please point out what am I missing? If you do not want a dynamically-linked root, then do not turn on the option which will give you one. Me, if any of these files are corrupt, I generally reboot into a different snapshot of freebsd, or boot up off a CD and fix things from there. While it's an entertaining exercise to see if you can rescue a badly-damaged system while running from that very same system, the same way it was exciting to watch "Das Boot" and see if the crew will survive, I usually have better things I would like to do with my time. Furthermore, you're approaching this as if "corruption" is only a hardware issue. What if the "corruption" is that your system has just been broken into? Well, then, you pretty much can not trust anything, even if a program does run. So why not have a plan (such as a bootable CD-rom) which works for all kinds of corruption? Personally, I'm a lot more concerned about a break-in than hardware-failure, but maybe I'm just lucky with hardware. I realize that there are many legitimate uses which will have problems with a dynamically-linked root, but I expect that for most users that is not a requirement. For the situations where it is important, I do expect that freebsd should always support the option to have a statically-linked root. If a user needs a statically-linked root but does not know they need it, then they probably won't know enough to fix a severely-broken system anyway. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu