From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 24 04:59:58 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3DCF0106566C for ; Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:59:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mj@feral.com) Received: from ns1.feral.com (ns1.feral.com [192.67.166.1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05DDC8FC08 for ; Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:59:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [192.168.1.2] (m206-63.dsl.tsoft.com [198.144.206.63]) by ns1.feral.com (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id o7O4baYA072705 for ; Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:37:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mj@feral.com) Message-ID: <4C734C92.4010105@feral.com> Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:37:38 -0700 From: Matthew Jacob Organization: Feral Software User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.11) Gecko/20100711 Thunderbird/3.0.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org References: <20100823.171201.107001114053031707.imp@bsdimp.com> <8C76250B-E272-4807-BD0D-9F50D0BC5E10@mac.com> <20100824002350.042A45B3B@mail.bitblocks.com> <4CB9F7C8-39E8-4C3B-A3F8-A5A9EC178E7D@mac.com> <20100824043344.CA4DE5B56@mail.bitblocks.com> In-Reply-To: <20100824043344.CA4DE5B56@mail.bitblocks.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Default is to whitelist mail, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (ns1.feral.com [192.67.166.1]); Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:37:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: RFC: enhancing the root mount logic X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:59:58 -0000 Yes, this is the RedHat root pivot goop that's been around for ages. It turns out to be a massive PITA, because the initrd image can get out of sync with the kernel and hardware, and since some of the modules can be loaded from there, but not from the root filesystem there is a definite possibility (which has happened with more times than I care to remember) that you'll get hosed and not be able to mount your root filesystem. This actually can happen so easily that when I install CentOS or Fedora, I override the defaults and put the root filesystem on a plain partition/filesystem rather than as part of an LVM2 volume. > BTW, a friend tells me this is what Linux does (or more > likely, what they used in their server startup). Basically a > ramdisk with init + loadable drivers + tools needed to get > going. Once the actual root fs device is found (even if > disks got switched around etc.) they switched to the actual > root. > >