Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 11:36:21 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adam C. Migus" <adam@migus.org> To: "Peter Jeremy" <PeterJeremy@optushome.com.au> Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Things to remove from /rescue Message-ID: <51777.192.168.4.2.1062430581.squirrel@mail.migus.org> In-Reply-To: <20030901091043.GA87897@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au> References: <20030722153056.GM863@starjuice.net> <200307231042.29371.alex.neyman@auriga.ru> <51381.192.168.4.2.1062397532.squirrel@mail.migus.org> <20030901091043.GA87897@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au>
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Peter Jeremy said: > On Mon, Sep 01, 2003 at 02:25:32AM -0400, Adam C. Migus wrote: >>The whole change to dynamic linking for / is a move to "modernize"acquire >>FreeBSD. Thus /rescue is a "modern" attempt at creating a /stand. >>If we're going to be "modern" we ought to think about what "modern" >>sysadmins need to "rescue" their systems. > > What do you mean by a "modern" sysadmin? Do you mean people who > believe everything should be done via a GUI and would be lost if > presented with a shell prompt? > negligibleconvenient My apologies if this comment offends you based on what it doesn't say. A "modern" sysadmin could, I suppose fit, your description or could simply be a very intelligent young person six months out of college who has yet to aquire the skills of a more experienced sysadmin. I suppose it could also be an office administrator forced to become a system administrator due to downsizing at his or her company. >>/rescue to me implies "what's needed to rescue you're hosed FreeBSD >>system." > > Actually /rescue is only needed when you've managed to hose your > /lib, /bin or /sbin directories. If you haven't damaged your root > filesystem, you can use all the utilities in /bin and /sbin. If > your root is totally hosed, you need to boot from alternate media > (eg a fixit CD-ROM). > > Excluding hamfisted sysadmins pointing "rm" at the wrong directory, > /rescue is probably going to be of most use to developers who have > managed to a "make world" at an inopportune time and installed a > non-functional ld.so or similar. > Ok, to rephrase: "what's needed to rescue your (fix the typo while I'm here) hosed FreeBSD system, which you hosed by toasting your /lib." >>Finally, this argument essentially comes down to space savings vs. >>ability to rescue the system. Is 100K of disk space worth 2 hours >>of time due to a missing tool? > > Any missing tool is probably available on the fixit CD-ROM. > What if you don't have a CD-ROM? >>Why not make the set of tools in /rescue easily configurable and >>divide them into three sets: >> >>1. Those that are in the crunch and linked in /rescue, >>2. Those that are in the crunch but aren't linked in /rescue, and >>3. Those that aren't yet in the crunch. >> >>The first being tools everyone agrees are valuable, the second >> being >>tools that at least one person thinks might be useful (not in >> excess >>of what's there now), the last being tools everyone can agree are >>useless (and thus aren't there now). > > There doesn't seem to be any reason for the second category. The > prime driver for /rescue is size. Once you've included a utility > within the crunch, you've taken the size hit so you might as well > include the link. > >>That way if an administrator complains about a missing tool someone >>said might be useful, the answer is "just create a link." > > And the administrator has a whinge about the #$@!%@* idiots who > made him waste hours waiting for a response to his e-mail when they > could have created the link to start with. This doesn't strike me > as being of benefit to anyone. > > Peter > I really think you missed the whole point of the post. I didn't post to argue. I posted a solution that provides a way to allow the FreeBSD community to trim or grow /rescue to fit the needs of it's users. The space savings is negligable on most systems and making the list of programs easily configurable is a convienient way of limiting the size for systems in which space is critical. -- Adam - (http://people.migus.org/~amigus/) Migus Dot Org - (http://www.migus.org/)
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