Re: loader.conf ignores setting variable ending in _type

On Tuesday 21 July 2009 02:52 pm, Andrew Gallatin wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I maintain the mxge (10GbE) driver.  A user complained to me
> that one of my driver's tunables was ignored when he set it
> in /boot/loader.conf.   I reproduced his problem both on -current
> and 7.2.  I think there may be some quirk which is causing the
> loader to ignore this variable, but my 4th skills are non-existent,
> and I'm looking for some help.
>
> To reproduce this bug, I used a loader.conf which
> looks like this:
>
> console=comconsole
> if_mxge_load="YES"
> mxge_eth_z8e_load="YES"
> mxge_rss_eth_z8e_load="YES"
> hw.mxge.rss_hash_type="2"
> hw.mxge.max_slices="2"
>
>
>
> After interrupting the boot, I could confirm that rss_hash_type
> was not set:
>
> ..................................................................
> Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command
> prompt. Booting [/boot/kernel/kernel] in 8 seconds...
>
> Type '?' for a list of commands, 'help' for more detailed help.
> OK show hw.mxge.max_slices
> 2
> OK show hw.mxge.rss_hash_type
> variable 'hw.mxge.rss_hash_type' not found
> ...................................................................
>
> I have no problem setting hw.mxge.rss_hash_type while the machine
> is up via kenv.  Also, it seems to stick when set manually from the
> loader.
>
>
> After poking around for quite a while, I noticed that the loader
> refuses to honor any variable ending in _type loaded from
> loader.conf.
>
> Is this because the suffix "_type" (for module_type) is somehow
> reserved and I should not be using a tunable ending in _type
> Or is this a bug in the loader?

Yes, it is reserved.

loader.conf(5):

     *_type	Defines the module's type.  If none is given, it defaults
		to a kld module.

Jung-uk Kim