On Fri, Mar 30, 2001 at 06:24:58PM -0500, Anne Bennett wrote:
> 
> Hubert Feyrer <hubert.feyrer@informatik.fh-regensburg.de> suggests:
> 
> >> installboot: no password support in bootblock
> > 
> > cd /sys/arch/i386/stand/biosboot, edit the Makefile to build with
> > BOOTPASSWD, rebuild. 
> > 
> > I have not tried this - someone mentioned that there may be a size issue
> > in the current bootblock code. Maybe let us know if this works or not.
> 
> I'll be happy to try this (on Monday), if I can do it without risking
> trashing that system.  I don't mind risking having to boot from floppy
> to install a good bootblock if my attempt results in an unusable one,
> but is there any chance that, if the resulting code is too big, part of
> my root partition will be overwritten?

No; most of the boot block is actually installed through the file
system; only the first sector is written `the hard way', and always at
the beginning of the partition.  installboot(8) will complain if there
are too many sectors.

If it turns out to be too big, you can always remove some features.
E.g., SA_USE_CREAD=yes is only necessary to boot gzipped kernels, which
you probably don't need to do.