>At 11:42 pm 16/3/96, kpneal@eos.ncsu.edu wrote:
>>4) Having the kernel know what boot kernel image was used. How does
>>OSF/1 do this? How about pass the name into the kernel as an arg on
>>bootup (by the loader)? Then pass that name to libkvm. Then how do you
>>deal with /dev/reload? Not 100% surefire, but it's an idea?
>>

I think some platforms would have a very tough time passing in the
kernel name as their loaders are firmware.  Maybe this could be
circumvented by an intermediary loader.  The intermediary loader
could do other things as well, such as loading a kernel that's in a
different OMF than the firmware loader expects (ELF on Suns,
Alphas, and MIPS).  Yes, I know, got off on a tangent. :)

>I might be way off-base here, but would it make sense to have the kernel
>image accessible from /kern/image (for example)?

This would/could be useful.  But if there was a way to determine
the loaded image name, then ps, w, etc. would have access to it as
well.  Your idea would keep the utils from having to grok the
location, and as such I like it, sounds like a wonderful idea. :)

>The only question then is how to pass the image to mount_kernfs....

Easy, once you know the name of the loaded kernel.

>Presumably this is in aid of programs like ps and so forth not being
>hard-wired to /netbsd...

Yes, Yes, Yes....


ciao,
erik