NetBSD-BETA2: will boot, won't root from bootloader's dev hd0h: ??

[M L Riechers <mlr%rse.com@localhost>]

Here's one for the books.

I've got a number of partitions on my test machine (cterm).  It has
one drive, wd0.  wd0a contains NetBSD-BETA and a bunch of pkgsrc from
last year, compiled pkgsrc stuff from 5.99.  I want to keep wd0a in
place, and do new work in other partitions.

Which I have done.  I have wd0j, wd0k, and wd0l loaded up with various
builds of netbsd and pkgsrc, and have no trouble booting these
partions, say like doing:

  In the bootloader:  dev hd0j, then
                      boot

and the bootloader merrily boots the netbsd kernel (NetBSD-BETA
original ) from partition j, and the kernel notes that the root file
system is wd0j, uses the fstab from /etc/fstab on wd0j, mounts wd0j,
and all is well within the little world of wd0j.

Now I've compiled NetBSD-BETA2 (actually picked up from
nyftp.netbsd.org daily -- 2 August) from source, and made a partition
wd0h upgraded with the NetBSD-BETA2 distribution I just compiled.  Now
if I do:

  In the bootloader:  dev hd0h, then
                      boot

then the bootloader boots the NetBSD-BETA2 kernel, but the kernel
forgets all about the fact that the root system's supposed to be wd0h,
and reads wd0a as the root partition.  If I do:

  In the bootloader:  dev hd0h, then
                      boot -s

the kernel most definitely thinks that the root system is wd0a.

However, I have a NetBSD-BETA original kernal named n also in wd0j,
and if I do:

  In the bootloader:  dev hd0h, then
                      boot n -s

then this NetBSD-BETA original kernal boots just fine, and recognises
wd0h as the root file system.

So in desperation (i.e. I RTFM) I tried:


  In the bootloader:  dev hd0h, then
                      boot -a

The kernel did ask for the root file system, dump, etc, which it
iterated a couple of times, apparently not believing me the first
time.  But it did work, and I was able to boot both NetBSD-BETA2
and root it to wd0h.

So, am I missing something here, such as a new and secret way
to pass the root partition from the bootloader to the NetBSD
kernel, or have I got a bug, and is it PR worthy?

BTW, I did _not_ upgrade boot.

Yours,

-Mike

-- 
Kind Regards, I am

 /s/ Michael L. Riechers

Michael L. Riechers,
Owner,                                  M L Riechers Systems Engineering
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