Eduardo E. Horvath writes:
> 
> I strongly recommend deciding what you want to do about device naming
> before embarking on dynamic configuration.  It's really annoying when sd3a
> which has your root partition on it suddenly changes and becomes sd2a
> because one of the other disks did not come up.  And Wiring it down in the
> kernel config file is useless because, since it's a fully dynamic kernel,
> none of the devices are in the kernel config file.  

What about a config file in /etc on the root device on booting. If the file
exists then the drive wiring could be done per that file. If there is no
file in /etc, then the default method could be used (however the kernel
was configured). I would think this could be done, as at the point we
are talking about, the root filesystem would be accessible. However, I
do not know whether the /etc filesystem would be accessible. Maybe a 
.deviceconfig file in / would work instead? No matter what, the root
device has to be specified somehow during the boot process per the
hardware access names that the boot loader uses, mapped to the default
names used in the kernel. Unless perhaps the boot loader was to read
the config file from the same point it is reading the kernel from, and
passes that to the kernel in a structure?

I leave it to others to see if what I wrote above even makes sense, but 
if the kernel is being read from a filesystem, perhaps there could be a 
netbsd or netbsd.gz kernel file, and a netbsd.conf file with the human
readable file to wire devices, set flags, etc. rather than have to type
everything on the boot command.

-- 
Joseph Sarkes                   mailto:joe@mediaone.net
P.O. Box 482
Ipswich, MA 01938
(978) 948-5017