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Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:19:29 +0100
From: Luigi Rizzo <rizzo@iet.unipi.it>
To: Andrew Thompson <thompsa@freebsd.org>
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Cc: Andrew Lankford <lankfordandrew@charter.net>, stable@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: System borked:  loader stack overflow.
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On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 12:18:09PM -0800, Andrew Thompson wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 09:08:56PM +0100, Luigi Rizzo wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 02:19:23PM -0500, Andrew Lankford wrote:
> > > Andrew Thompson wrote:
> > ...
> > > >Having the following in /boot/loader.conf triggers it for me,
> > > >
> > > > loader_conf_files="/boot/device.hints /boot/loader.conf"
> > > >
> > > >You may say thats its an invalid config line but the loader shouldnt
> > > >blow up from it. Can this be fixed up somehow?
> > 
> > no, this cannot be "fixed" because it is the user misprogramming
> > the system, such as providing the wrong path to the kernel
> > or writing a loop in /etc/rc.conf or a billion other ways.
> 
> Yes, but you can copy /etc/defaults/rc.conf to /etc/rc.conf and things
> still work.

just because it contains only variable assignments, whereas the
"assignments" in loader.conf have other side effects.

However, I agree that a split of the content of loader.conf
might make reduce the chance of mistakes.
I'll look into this.

> Ok, then loader_conf_files needs to be marked as special and not to be
> overridden from /boot/defaults/loader.conf like all the other options.

Unless i misunderstand what you say, this is already documented in
loader.conf(5)

	cheers
	luigi