Re: Setting the root partition for boot

[Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost>]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2026 at 09:45:26PM +1000, Matt Wallis wrote:
> One thing I?m not clear on here is how OpenFirmware and ofwboot interact, and maybe this is a read the source thing, but why is the command that I use in OF to load ofwboot, then specifying the kernel location per OF structures and not BSD structures?
> 
> i.e Why:
> boot hd:,\ofwboot.xcf hd:5,/netbsd
> And not
> boot hd:.\ofwboot.xcf wd0b:/netbsd

ofwboot is a OpenFirmware client program and runs before any part of the
NetBSD kernel has been loaded/run.

Things like wd0 (and its partitions) will only become defined after
the kernels autoconfiguration happened.

ofwboot loads the kernel by using OpenFirmware calls, so the naming must be
in OF notation. How this information is then passed to the kernel is a
completely different thing, but using OF phandles to identify devices
is the easiest way. You do not want to read the source of poor x86 that
deals with this topic for BIOS boot (where no such natural mechanism exists).

Martin