Re: boot.cfg

[Robert Swindells <rjs%fdy2.demon.co.uk@localhost>]

Christoph Egger wrote:
>On Thursday 18 September 2008 01:20:56 Christoph Egger wrote:
>> >> The following will now work as a boot.cfg option:
>> >>
>> >> menu=Boot Xen:modules enabled;load /netbsd-DOM0;multiboot xen.gz
>> >> dom0_mem=65536 console=vga -- bootdev=wd0a ro console=pc
>>
>> I have questions to the syntax:
>>
>> How does it scale on specifying multiple modules and how will you pass
>> arguments to _each_ module ?

>IMO, humans will tend to mix up which module arguments belong to which module.
>See my proposal below.

We don't currently support passing arguments directly to any module.

We could do this, but I think that the multiboot startup sequence
should match what is done using bootinfo.

>> The current syntax seems to be limited in passing arguments
>> only to the _first_ module.
>>
>> Since multiboot lines tend to become very long lines, is it possible
>> to split it over multiple lines in boot.cfg ?

>May I suggest a small change to the syntax:
>
>Specify the arguments for the module with "load" rather after the --
>
>Above example would be then:
>
>menu=Boot Xen:modules enabled;load /netbsd-DOM0 bootdev=wd0a ro 
>console=pc;multiboot xen.gz dom0_mem=65536 console=vga
>
>This form of syntax will a) scale with more modules and b) the
>configuration is easier to read & handle for both parser and the
>human.

The syntax of the command line matches what Xen can handle, it looks
for " -- " and either sends anything after this or any explicit module
argument to the dom0.

It would be simple to set the mmo_string field of the multiboot_module
struct to something in boot(8), but I would prefer not to do this unless
an equivalent field was added to bi_modulelist entry.

Robert Swindells