Re: [CFT] bsdinstall and zfsboot enhancements

On 11/11/13 14:30, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
> On 11/11/13 14:18, Teske, Devin wrote:
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>>
>> On Nov 11, 2013, at 11:46 AM, Michael Dexter wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I have been experimenting with various BSD and GNU/Linux boot media
>> under bhyve and noticed that we may want to accommodate the "LiveCD"
>> mode of the installer, which in turn requires the correct console.
>>
>> Currently, one is prompted for VT100 for installation but this does not
>> appear to work/stick for LiveCD mode.
>>
>> Can anyone verify this?
>>
>>
>> While I developed this patch...
>> http://druidbsd.cvs.sf.net/viewvc/druidbsd/bsdinstall_zfs/usr.sbin%3A%3Absdinstall%3A%3Ascripts%3A%3Aconfig.patch?revision=1.10&view=markup 
>>
>>
>> Reasons exist to search for a better solution, see here:
>> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2013-November/046148.html 
>>
>> (and messages that follow it)
>>
>> Is modifying init(8) still the way to go? What modification do we 
>> want to make?
>> I'll do the work if we can come to consensus.
>>
>> Or should we touch up the patch in some way to address the original 
>> concerns?
>>
>
> I think modifying init is the way to go -- it keeps the install system 
> from interfering with the installed one, as well as fixing this kind 
> of issue with moved hard drives or PXE booting or what have you. If we 
> can provide a guarantee that any system that displays text has a 
> working console (unless explicitly configured not to), useability is 
> improved.
>
> I would propose one of the following (and volunteer to write the code):
>
> Option A
> ------------
>
> 1. init checks if there is an entry in /etc/ttys for the terminal[s] 
> corresponding to the value[s] in kern.console
> 2. If an entry for each console terminal exists in /etc/ttys, enable it
> 3. If not, invent one with a terminal type of "ansi"
>
> The one issue here is that someone may want to force a particular 
> entry to off and still have it be the kernel console. This is tricky. 
> We could invent a new "status" field that is not "on" or "off" 
> ("auto", maybe, or "ifconsole"?). Which brings us to:

One easy way to accomplish this is just to only implement (1) and (3), 
then comment out the ttyu0 entry in /etc/ttys on x86 instead of marking 
it "off". Then the behavior is just that a tty marked "off" stays off, 
one marked "on" stays on, and one not present spawns login with a 
terminal type corresponding to "console" (by default "unknown") if it 
happens to be the console. I will implement this over the next few days 
and then send patches unless anyone has an objection.
-Nathan