Re: [CFC/CFT] large changes in the loader(8) code

From: Kevin Oberman <kob6558_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:28:08 -0700
On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk_at_phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>
> I would like to point out that all other operating system which has
> had this precise problem, have solved it by adding a bootfs partition
> to hold the kernel+modules required to truly understand the disk-layout ?

I have seen some form of this solution suggested three times (once by
me) and now by someone who I think I can safely states is pretty
familiar with geom. So far I have seen no direct response and only a
passing comment by jhb that it might be difficult.

Sometimes standards need to be broken. Sometimes they such so badly
that te entire industry ignores them. But, unless there i a good
reason to ignore them, one should fully justify doing so, all the more
so when there are obvious ways that non-compliance can lead to
disaster. (Think of  geli disk there some other software steps on the
last block.)

Moreover, I think I can see a legitimate case, though I have not tried it.

Say I have a FreeBSD system with a large, unused space on the disk and
it uses gmirror. I decide that I need to have the ability to
occasionally boot Linux on this system (or, even Windows 8). For some
reason, and I can think of several, I can't use a virtual system. I
create a new partition for the second OS and install it. It knows
nothing about the gmirror, so it just uses the disk it is installed on
and never touches the metadata.

Is this possible? Looks reasonable to me.

I really, really feel uncomfortable about all of this. And  when
people start claiming that, by a very strained interpretation of what
appears on the surface to be a clear specification, they are not
violating the standard.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
E-mail: kob6558_at_gmail.com
Received on Thu Jun 28 2012 - 02:28:16 UTC

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