Re: kern/49217: "installboot" fails under NetBSD/amd64

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR kern/49217; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>
To: Matthias Scheler <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost>
Cc: NetBSD GNATS <gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost>
Subject: Re: kern/49217: "installboot" fails under NetBSD/amd64
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 01:37:15 +0700

     Date:        Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:30:39 +0100
     From:        Matthias Scheler <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost>
     Message-ID:  <20140919123039.GB27963%colwyn.zhadum.org.uk@localhost>
 
   | If I'm not mistaken the current example *will not work on any system*.
 
 No, wedge autodiscovery is a kernel compile option (which has now been
 turned off for the distributed binary kernels .. and when it comes back
 could perhaps be settable via sysctl) - the example would have worked
 fine for some of my kernels, as I build my own with my own kernel config
 files, in which the auto-discovery option was never enabled.   (Only some
 of mine, on other I use GPT partitioning, and wd0a never works, for anything.)
 
   | It seems that "mount" understand wedges.
 
 Yes, mount does, as do a few other commands - but certainly not all.
 One time use commands (like installboot) probably never really need to,
 they're essentially only ever run by humans, or just possibly by software
 that looks to see wat devices are available, and offers a human a menu
 of choices.   But there are a whole bunch of other places where knowledge
 of wedge names really is either necessary, or at least, difficult to
 survive without it.
 
   | >  This PR should close, there is no installboot or kernel bug here.
 
 The wedge autodiscovery option has been turned off again now, so
 future kernel builds will get wd0a back again...  So, even if therfe
 were a doc "bug" (if I were fixing it, I'd get rid of specific plausible
 device names in all examples - they're correct for some people, incorrect
 for others, which is a state that always leads to confusion ... "It works
 for me" "It fails every time I try it"...) and replace them with meaningless
 tokens that work for no-one, but which obviously need to be replaced.
 
 kre