Subject: Re: CFR: The Auto-Generation Block/Character Device Switch Tables
To: Greg A. Woods <woods@weird.com>
From: Sean Davis <dive@endersgame.net>
List: tech-kern
Date: 05/13/2002 03:18:40
> Conceivably one could even add another "stage" before /etc/rc, i.e. a
> script that would run before /sbin/init opens /dev/console, and the main
> one we have now, i.e. /etc/rc, would then be run after /dev/console is
> opened (with /dev/console still being the controlling tty for the shell
> running /etc/rc).  This way on some systems /dev could even be a memory
> filesystem that's always newfs'ed on boot and populated by MAKEDEV so
> that at least on boot it would always match the running kernel and have
> the default permissions properly reset, yet for those who would like
> persistence they could leave /dev on the root filesystem and switch
> MAKEDEV into its "just annoy me" mode.  Even with /dev in a memory
> filesystem there could be a persistent minimal /dev underneath it on the
> root filesystem for emergency use.

Doesn't -current do this already, sort of? I recently installed a 1.5ZA snap
on i386, and the install didn't complete correctly (my cd was semi hosed :),
so /dev never got generated. When I booted the system, instead of telling me
no /dev/console (as it used to do, I don't remember when it changed), it
mounted /dev as MFS and automatically MAKEDEV'd there. I really like that
behavior, it saved be from having a mostly-dead system that I would have had
to boot from cd and fix up that way.

-Sean

> -- 
> 								Greg A. Woods
> 
> +1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods@acm.org>;  <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;  <woods@robohack.ca>
> Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>

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