> Yup.  We need kernel symbols for three things:
>
> 1) DDB:  Symbols must be resident and nonpageable "forever".
> 2) KVM:  Symbols may be pageable, and may be discarded once kvm_mkdb
>          has been run.
> 3) LKM:  Symbols may be pageable, and may be discarded when
>          securelevel > 0.

The latter is not correct for (at least) two reasons:
	(1) you don't want all of the kernel symbols to be exported, and
	(2) the symbols can never be discarded, because even after
	    you've increased securelevel to > 0, it can still be
	    lowered (by going back to single-user mode).

the KVM case is mostly irrelevant (in my opinion), because you can
solve the same problem as easily for all "real" cases by having
/etc/rc be able to find out the name of the kernel which was booted...
It also has the potential problem that if somebody removes the kvm db,
you're back in the current situation.


> >I'm not saying that it's necessarily bad,w just that the corner cases
> >shouldn't be overlooked, and that logically incorrect justifications
> >shouldn't be given as to why it's a "good solution."
> 
> Well, let me put it this way:  How many people run NetBSD on machines
> where configuring DDB into the kernel would make it too big?

I've certainly configured it out of certain machines to save the
memory that it would occupy...


cgd