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To: Andreas Klemm <andreas@klemm.gtn.com>
cc: "Kenneth D. Merry" <ken@plutotech.com>, ken@FreeBSD.ORG,
        cvs-committers@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/cam/scsi scsi_sa.c src/sys/conf options src/sys/i386/conf LINT 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 02 Oct 1998 18:04:34 +0200."
             <19981002180434.A29527@klemm.gtn.com> 
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 1998 00:32:31 +0800
From: Peter Wemm <peter@netplex.com.au>
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Andreas Klemm wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 02, 1998 at 12:22:18AM -0600, Kenneth D. Merry wrote:
> > How about this -- make them sysctl variables and kernel options, like the
> > CD changer timeouts in the CAM CD driver.  So, you can tweak the timeouts
> > while the system is running, and then once you've got them the way you want
> > them, you can put them in your kernel config file.
> 
> That's of course the best solution for best functionality ;-)

I sometimes wonder about things like dset(8).  I'd love to be able to tag 
certain sysctl variables as 'should be persistant' or something, and a 
command to sync those variables with the corresponding kernel image.  This 
would be handy for changing defaults on a GENERIC kernel like many people 
use.

Hmm.. Perhaps 'sysctl -W foo.bar=10' might be a way to request 
persistance.  Implementing it would be hell though, but for INT variables 
at least it should just be a matter of grubbing around inside /dev/kmem 
(or some option to sysctl itself to tell us the kva of the backing 
variable) and then stow that away in the booted kernel image (if 
permitted).  And it would only work for varaiables in the data segment 
rather than bss or initialized-to-zero.

Argh.. On second thoughts maybe I'll just shutup.

Cheers,
-Peter