From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 7 17:42:04 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9B6D5106564A for ; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 17:42:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kaduk@mit.edu) Received: from dmz-mailsec-scanner-4.mit.edu (DMZ-MAILSEC-SCANNER-4.MIT.EDU [18.9.25.15]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3E4B58FC1B for ; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 17:42:03 +0000 (UTC) X-AuditID: 1209190f-b7f6e6d0000008df-2e-4e8f39eb95a1 Received: from mailhub-auth-3.mit.edu ( [18.9.21.43]) by dmz-mailsec-scanner-4.mit.edu (Symantec Messaging Gateway) with SMTP id 29.73.02271.BE93F8E4; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 13:42:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (OUTGOING-AUTH.MIT.EDU [18.7.22.103]) by mailhub-auth-3.mit.edu (8.13.8/8.9.2) with ESMTP id p97Hg3fW023548 for ; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 13:42:03 -0400 Received: from multics.mit.edu (MULTICS.MIT.EDU [18.187.1.73]) (authenticated bits=56) (User authenticated as kaduk@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.13.6/8.12.4) with ESMTP id p97Hg2gm007293 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT) for ; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 13:42:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from kaduk@localhost) by multics.mit.edu (8.12.9.20060308) id p97Hg1YX024157; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 13:42:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2011 13:42:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Benjamin Kaduk To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Message-ID: User-Agent: Alpine 1.10 (GSO 962 2008-03-14) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII X-Brightmail-Tracker: H4sIAAAAAAAAA+NgFtrHIsWRmVeSWpSXmKPExsUixCmqrfvast/P4PdGJYs5bz4wOTB6zPg0 nyWAMYrLJiU1J7MstUjfLoErY0/7a7aCVq6KvQ8aGRsYOzi6GDk5JARMJNYs2MsOYYtJXLi3 nq2LkYtDSGAfo8TfBXsYIZyLjBLPG56DVQkJPGSSWLguFMKul5i2cTojiM0ioCWxrKeDDcRm E1CRmPlmI5gtIiAv8ezTdVYQWxho25db65hAbF4Be4l3HZvBbFEBHYnV+6ewQMQFJU7OfAJm MwtYSvxb+4t1AiPfLCSpWUhSCxiZVjHKpuRW6eYmZuYUpybrFicn5uWlFuma6OVmluilppRu YgQHkyT/DsZvB5UOMQpwMCrx8H563usnxJpYVlyZe4hRkoNJSZTX07TfT4gvKT+lMiOxOCO+ qDQntfgQowQHs5IIr8ObPj8h3pTEyqrUonyYlDQHi5I4b+MOBz8hgfTEktTs1NSC1CKYrAwH h5IE72IDoKGCRanpqRVpmTklCGkmDk6Q4TxAw8/oAtXwFhck5hZnpkPkTzEqSonzBgLjVUgA JJFRmgfXC4v2V4ziQK8I884DWcEDTBRw3a+ABjMBDT5tDDa4JBEhJdXAGPIr7HXLVP2b23oL jY5trcvd9UfNa8uCKb2Jk9kv9uzz+L8hatqOva/9ire2vftzK3L1N8XZLxonOQj1Hkku6kmd I23Jx6rNwRhV21Y3syyPs6r4v1DZnL0hE+5I9ecdNy/w5bJrjVb0qNz4as7BLRY/14U1Pdh3 IzW+4+2yZ5+Os4hJerDMVGIpzkg01GIuKk4EAPb0d6XRAgAA Subject: aliasing (or renaming) kern.geom.debugflags X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:42:04 -0000 Dear all, I feel like this has come up before, but a quick search didn't reveal anything terribly recent, at least. The new installation chapter of the handbook for 9.0 (that Warren and Glen and Garrett and Gavin and more people I am probably missing have sunk huge amounts of time into) has instructions on (e.g.) preparing a USB stick install image: http://www.glenbarber.us/FreeBSD9/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-pre.html (scroll down most of the way). But in order to do so, the instructions include 'sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16'! Now, an ordinary user who is doing this for the first time might ask, "why do I need to do something with 'debugflags' in order to make a USB stick? I'm not debugging anything, this is a standard operation!". I can't really advocate for changing the geom logic at this point in the release cycle (though it's not really clear why rank 1 geom providers need to be so special), but I think it would be nice to have a user-visible interface to it that does not have "debug" in the name, since the actual flags are apparently here for the long haul. I could certainly imagine aliasing the debugflags to just "flags", which seems more innocuous-sounding. Does this sound crazy? -Ben Kaduk