From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 7 17:45:59 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 1F8651065689 for ; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 17:45:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from yanegomi@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qw0-f54.google.com (mail-qw0-f54.google.com [209.85.216.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D55AD8FC24 for ; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 17:45:58 +0000 (UTC) Received: by qadz30 with SMTP id z30so3944202qad.13 for ; Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:45:58 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=5UjdFdP6jOTT+uvZiAMFORV9ekqxsW44CCJ63RiTWoI=; b=gFSGXadfPGHv1FVMQVbmD6JqnlM+Y+iSgsfxnZ/4pLlFhG0qLpHn8Mxi1y1uLyfKvC I70KaMVHad1huU4BQ0z/ErffioKgy+k+/MbDRlSMP4mqKp17SklDZ1b26P2bAEqN1H6+ laMh7oKUaABgHEyHThW/1w3WG0iK15zCPSqcA= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.224.189.198 with SMTP id df6mr2960513qab.46.1318009558356; Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:45:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.74.82 with HTTP; Fri, 7 Oct 2011 10:45:58 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2011 10:45:58 -0700 Message-ID: From: Garrett Cooper To: Benjamin Kaduk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 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 17:45:59 -0000 On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 10:42 AM, Benjamin Kaduk wrote: > 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 Gle= n > and Garrett and Gavin and more people I am probably missing have sunk hug= e > 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/inst= all-pre.html > (scroll down most of the way). =A0But in order to do so, the instructions > include 'sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=3D16'! =A0Now, an ordinary user who = is > doing this for the first time might ask, "why do I need to do something w= ith > 'debugflags' in order to make a USB stick? =A0I'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 nee= d > 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. =A0I could certainly imagine > aliasing the debugflags to just "flags", which seems more > innocuous-sounding. > > Does this sound crazy? Yes. From geom(4): DIAGNOSTICS Several flags are provided for tracing GEOM operations and unlocking p= ro- tection mechanisms via the kern.geom.debugflags sysctl. All of these flags are off by default, and great care should be taken in turning th= em on. geom(4) has more details about what they do. Thanks, -Garrett