From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 1 17:39:04 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D0CCB16A420 for ; Wed, 1 Feb 2006 17:39:04 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from speedfactory.net (mail6.speedfactory.net [66.23.216.219]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 39CE543D46 for ; Wed, 1 Feb 2006 17:39:04 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from server.baldwin.cx (unverified [66.23.211.162]) by speedfactory.net (SurgeMail 3.5b3) with ESMTP id 7492588 for multiple; Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:39:38 -0500 Received: from localhost (john@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by server.baldwin.cx (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k11Hd2m2094204; Wed, 1 Feb 2006 12:39:02 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 12:40:10 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: <200602011341.k11Dfbq1008941@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <200602011341.k11Dfbq1008941@lurza.secnetix.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200602011240.11682.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.87.1/1264/Wed Feb 1 07:38:31 2006 on server.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=4.2 tests=ALL_TRUSTED autolearn=failed version=3.1.0 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.0 (2005-09-13) on server.baldwin.cx X-Server: High Performance Mail Server - http://surgemail.com r=1653887525 Cc: Oliver Fromme Subject: Re: nextboot (was Re: boot block differences between 4.x and 6.x ?) X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:39:04 -0000 On Wednesday 01 February 2006 08:41, Oliver Fromme wrote: > Julian Elischer wrote: > > Oliver Fromme wrote: > > > [...] > > > I think the most visible changes in the boot blocks was > > > UFS2 support and the removal of nextboot(8) support. > > > > which I hope to put back because we continue to need it. > > I agree that it's needed. It's a very useful feature. > > > (The new nextboot being dependent on the root filesystem still being ok > > which is unacceptable to most embedded devices I've worked on, and why > > we still use the old bootblocks on all systems shipped.). > > > >From my point of view, the biggest problem with the old > > nextboot was the fact that it ignored loader(8) and tried > to load the kernel directly. While that might work under > certain conditions, it's not good in general. > > Therefore I think that a new nextboot implementation > should be implemented in loader itself. Since loader(8) > doesn't (and shouldn't) support writing to UFS2, the > state information should be written to an unused area in > block 2 on the disk, or something similar. In fact, one > byte is sufficient: It can be used as an index into a > table (ASCII text file), e.g. /boot/nextboot.conf. > > Would that be feasible to implement? /boot/loader already does nextboot and does it by using UFS writing (which it does implement and use on archs whose disk drivers support writing such as i386) to overwrite (but not extend) /boot/nextboot.conf. -- John Baldwin <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve" = http://www.FreeBSD.org