Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 01:09:29 +0800 From: Peter Wemm <peter@netplex.com.au> To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@mat.net> Cc: Brian Feldman <green@zone.syracuse.net>, John Hay <jhay@mikom.csir.co.za>, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Booting Elf Kernel Message-ID: <199811031709.BAA24549@spinner.netplex.com.au> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:03:28 EST." <Pine.BSF.4.05.9811030759560.300-100000@picnic.mat.net>
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Chuck Robey wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Peter Wemm wrote:
>
> > Brian Feldman wrote:
> > > Ahhhh, that's where it is! I have no good idea on how to allow, with this
> > > code, lkm's and kld's to coexist.... so is it time to completely phase ou
t
> > > lkm's yet?
> >
> > I think the best way is to have mount(2) initiate a kldload if needed. We
> > will need this functionality sooner or later. If mount(2) does it, we can
> > garbage collect unused, unmounted filesystems after a while and unload
> > them.
>
> Peter, you once told me that the new elf kernel has both aout and elf
> linkers in it. Does an elf kernel have the ability to load lkm modules,
> not the .ko things? If so, then the mount stuff is going to need to
> know which kind of module to hunt for, to load, right? Or, if they both
> work, maybe find both, and load the newest? With maybe a kld bias for a
> tiebreaker?
The in-kernel linkers can only load kld modules. LKM's are out, they
require too much userland support and are too limited because the symbol
table is not normally kept for incremental linking. kld modules very
closely resemble shared libraries, and the in-kernel linker resembles a
lightweight ld.so.
I believe that an ELF kernel can load an a.out kld module, but I have not
tested it - it has code to convert the symbol prefixes. I am not sure if
an a.out kernel can load an ELF kld module, I do not recall seeing code to
convert the symbols.. In any case, the safest thing to do is use a.out kld
modules on a.out kernels and ELF on ELF kernels.
Cheers,
-Peter
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