Subject: Re: /sbin/init failure
To: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
From: Luke Mewburn <lukem@NetBSD.org>
List: port-i386
Date: 04/18/2005 01:50:23
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On Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 10:35:42PM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
  | >> exec /sbin/init: error 20
  | >> exec /sbin/oinit: error 20
  | >> exec /sbin/init.bak: error 20
  | >> init: not found
  | >> panic: no init
  |=20
  | Is there any reason why the kernel doesn't prompt for an init path when
  | the attempt to exec init fails, rather than panicking and making the
  | user reboot with the appropriate flag?  That's always seemed to me to
  | be much the more suitable response, and it isn't even very hard to do.

It's possible that the system has been configured to prevent use
of boot flags without a password, and your suggestion could allow
circumvention of that in this particular failure condition.
(Yes, this is probably unlikely; but I suspect there'd be at least
one user out there who is relying upon the existing behaviour...)

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