From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Dec 12 15:51:38 1996 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id PAA19234 for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 15:51:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de [141.76.1.11]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id PAA19202 for ; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 15:51:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from sax.sax.de (sax.sax.de [193.175.26.33]) by irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with ESMTP id AAA02322; Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:51:18 +0100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by sax.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id AAA14633; Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:51:17 +0100 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.8.2/8.6.9) id AAA13735; Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:33:30 +0100 (MET) From: J Wunsch Message-Id: <199612122333.AAA13735@uriah.heep.sax.de> Subject: Re: 2.1.5-R kernel root on sd0 fails To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org (FreeBSD hackers) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:33:30 +0100 (MET) Cc: lada@ws2301.gud.siemens.co.at (Hr.Ladavac) Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) In-Reply-To: <199612122305.AA208211935@ws2301.gud.siemens.co.at> from "Hr.Ladavac" at "Dec 13, 96 00:05:35 am" X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DC 47 E6 E4 FF A6 E9 8F 93 21 E0 7D F9 12 D6 4E X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL17 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk As Hr.Ladavac wrote: > > > kernel root on sd0 swap on sd0 > > > > This should not be needed, unless you boot with the -r option. > > Well, it didn't work anyway. It did work as intended. It didn't work as you expected though. Booting with -r should have got you where you wanted it, but is of course... > > 1:sd(0,a)/kernel > > Sure, I know that. But it requires manual intervention on *every* boot. ...in the same boat with this solution. ``nextboot'' is the projected solution to your problem, but Julian Elischer apparently failed to document how to set it up, and to advocate for its use. You might give it a try, perhaps you can figure out how it works? (Don't ask me though, i don't have disks where i could spare sector 2 for the nextboot information.) > > Disabling the IDE drive in the BIOS is also an option (you could still > > use it from BSD anyway). > > Not on this box (or the owner of the disk would hang me by the balls). > She wants to have access to her files and does not like the idea of > fiddling with the BIOS configuration. ``access to her files'' -- You can _access_ them fine from within FreeBSD, even with the IDE drive disabled. That's probably not what you meant, but it's what you wrote. :) > OTOH, your statement implies that the kernel root device configuration > option is actually broken. I'll take a look in the config sources, then. No, it ain't broken. The root device is _intended_ to be automatically changed to the device where the system has been booted from. (Ever wondered about the ``changing root device to XXX'' message?) Digging into the config sources would only waste your time, since this is a kernel issue, not a matter of config. The bootstrap is indeed the key to your problem. (It passes the struct bootinfo down to the kernel, and this will in turn be the information source for the kernel to learn about its boot device.) -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)