At Fri, 10 Oct 2025 23:00:57 -0700, Chris Hanson <cmhanson%eschatologist.net@localhost> wrote: Subject: Re: Shared-root diskless netboot, critical local/remote mounts, and rc.conf > > On Oct 10, 2025, at 2:18 PM, Greg A. Woods <woods%planix.ca@localhost> wrote: > > > > Indeed -- and so why invent yet another complex maze of things > > to add on to what's already got to be done to get there in the > > first place?!?!?!? > > It s not really inventing anything new to have getfsent(3) et al > contact a directory service discovered at boot, and it has the > advantage of not requiring changes to anything outside NetBSD. Adding support in the existing NFS boot parameter lookup to find one more value in the same way all the other values are found, and adding one more mount that's done in the same way the root filesystem is mounted is really and truly not inventing anything new, and also does not require any changes outside NetBSD, other than of course adding one more value per diskless host in the existing repository of client boot parameters that is used to boot these diskless systems. > Essentially all that s required will be to give libc/gen/fstab.c > the same treatment as (say) libc/gen/getgrent.c, and to add > support for fstab to nsswitch. Then I can add fstab support to an > NSS plug-in and it should just work. That's not "all" that's required. (even ignoring the issue of replacing /etc while running /etc/rc) You also have to think about the configuration and management overhead. This would add another place where diskless "boot" parameters need to be managed. I would say it is definitely the wrong approach, at least so long as NFS is the only way for booting diskless systems. (Note that virtual machines, at least through all the various existing hypervisors and emulators I know of, already have good ways to manage how storage devices are presented for mounting, and/or use NFS for storage.) -- Greg A. Woods <gwoods%acm.org@localhost> Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack <woods%robohack.ca@localhost> Planix, Inc. <woods%planix.com@localhost> Avoncote Farms <woods%avoncote.ca@localhost>
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