Re: NetBSD bootloader randomly boots wrong kernel

[matthew sporleder <msporleder%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Sad Clouds
<cryintothebluesky%googlemail.com@localhost> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:46:43 +0000
> "Jonathan A. Kollasch" <jakllsch%kollasch.net@localhost> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 04:43:14PM +0000, Sad Clouds wrote:
>> > On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 17:11:52 +0100
>> > Jean-Yves Migeon <jeanyves.migeon%free.fr@localhost> wrote:
>> >
>> > > On 27.12.2010 13:32, Sad Clouds wrote:
>> > > > This is /netbsd kernel:
>> > > > NetBSD 5.1_STABLE (GENERIC) #0: Mon Nov 29 19:52:01 GMT 2010
>> > > >
>> > > > This is /netbsd.old kernel
>> > > > NetBSD 5.1 (GENERIC) #2: Fri Nov 19 11:28:39 UTC 2010
>> > > >
>> > > > Can anyone explain why my bootloader does this??
>> > >
>> > > boot(8):
>> > >
>> > >       The default filename is netbsd; if the boot loader fails to
>> > >       successfully open that image, it then tries netbsd.gz (expected
>> > >       to be a kernel image compressed by gzip), followed by
>> > >       netbsd.old, netbsd.old.gz, onetbsd, and finally onetbsd.gz.
>> > >       Alternate system images can be loaded by just specifying the
>> > >       name of the image.
>> >
>> > Yeah I'm aware of that, however if you have /netbsd and /netbsd.old, the 
>> > bootloader should always load /netbsd. What I have been observing is 
>> > bootloader loading /netbsd one time, then /netbsd.old another time, and so 
>> > on. It seems like it randomly picks /netbsd or /netbsd.old and loads it. 
>> > This should not happen.
>>
>> Well, what's actually happening?  There's probably some error message we
>> need to know about.
>>
>>       Jonathan Kollasch
>
> There is no error message, the only visible clue I get is different dmesg 
> from kernel when bootloader loads /netbsd.old
>
> To reiterate: it seems the bootloader sometimes loads /netbsd, and at other 
> times /netbsd.old kernel, without me explicitly doing anything.
>
> Is it possible there is a bug in bootloder, i.e. when it scans / filesystem 
> for a kernel to load, it gets confused and loads /netbsd.old kernel when it 
> should have loaded /netbsd??
>


               The default filename is netbsd; if the boot loader fails to
               successfully open that image, it then tries netbsd.gz (expected
               to be a kernel image compressed by gzip), followed by
               netbsd.old, netbsd.old.gz, onetbsd, and finally onetbsd.gz.
               Alternate system images can be loaded by just specifying the
               name of the image.

Could the initial scan be missing the normal kernel?  Maybe the ffs
module isn't functioning properly and needs a sleep?