Subject: Re: Son of diskless boot
To: maximum entropy <entropy@zippy.bernstein.com>
From: Matthias Drochner <drochner@zelux6.zel.kfa-juelich.de>
List: port-i386
Date: 05/23/1997 11:22:14
Excerpts from netbsd: 23-May-97 Re: Son of diskless boot Jonathan
Stone@DSG.Stanf (1454)

> >tanstaafl# config FOO
> >FOO85: netbsd says root on ep0, but there's no ep0
> >*** Stop.
> 
> That may be a bug.  The following works in your config file:

This IS a bug in "config".cfcrosscheck() assumes only disks,
it tries to interpret a non-existent minor number.
As an experiment, try with "ep31". This will work because
minor(-1) / maxpartitions == 31.
The reason it worked in some setups is that there was always
a starred device declaration.

I don't understand why "config" deals with major and minor
numbers at all. The new setroot et al. should be clever enough.

> Sounds like the kernel not finding recognising ep0 at boot time might
> be a bootblock problem. Perhaps with booting from DOS.

Same reason: networks cards mave no major/minor number.
The traditional layout of arguments passed to the kernel by
the bootblocks has no room for such devices (on i386).
If you don't want to change this, you have to wire enough
information into the kernel.
The new bootblocks contain code to pass device names.
To make use of it, you need to change the startup a bit.
(You can contact me for patches.)

best regards
Matthias