From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 12 12:47:37 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0848A106566C; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:47:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from aduane@juniper.net) Received: from exprod7og105.obsmtp.com (exprod7og105.obsmtp.com [64.18.2.163]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C3BE8FC28; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:47:35 +0000 (UTC) Received: from P-EMHUB02-HQ.jnpr.net ([66.129.224.36]) (using TLSv1) by exprod7ob105.postini.com ([64.18.6.12]) with SMTP ID DSNKTm3/Zuunad2q5uT1HgN3LaAcd6vN+5BJ@postini.com; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 05:47:36 PDT Received: from p-emfe02-wf.jnpr.net (172.28.145.25) by P-EMHUB02-HQ.jnpr.net (172.24.192.36) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 8.3.83.0; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 05:46:17 -0700 Received: from EMBX01-WF.jnpr.net ([fe80::1914:3299:33d9:e43b]) by p-emfe02-wf.jnpr.net ([fe80::c126:c633:d2dc:8090%11]) with mapi; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:46:16 -0400 From: Andrew Duane To: John Baldwin , "freebsd-arch@freebsd.org" Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:46:15 -0400 Thread-Topic: Soliciting opinions on an extension of the bootinfo structure Thread-Index: Acxu7If3eeG5YhC2RxiKwSeS4k5V0ACXT73Q Message-ID: References: <4E6940D3.4070801@freebsd.org> <201109090832.20770.jhb@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <201109090832.20770.jhb@freebsd.org> Accept-Language: en-US Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: acceptlanguage: en-US Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable MIME-Version: 1.0 Cc: "freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org" , Peter Grehan , Peter Wemm Subject: RE: Soliciting opinions on an extension of the bootinfo structure X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:47:37 -0000 Since this has turned out to be a more contentious idea than I thought, and= the upcoming FDT work will probably remove the need for it at all, I'm wit= hdrawing the idea. Although our current code uses such a platform extension= structure, we can make do with either metadata or environment variables fo= r the time being. =A0................................... Andrew Duane Juniper Networks o=A0=A0=A0+1 978 589 0551 m=A0 +1 603-770-7088 aduane@juniper.net =A0 -----Original Message----- From: John Baldwin [mailto:jhb@freebsd.org]=20 Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 8:32 AM To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Cc: Peter Wemm; Peter Grehan; freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; Andrew Duane Subject: Re: Soliciting opinions on an extension of the bootinfo structure On Thursday, September 08, 2011 6:48:19 pm Peter Wemm wrote: > On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Peter Grehan wrote: > >> I'm proposing an extension framework for the bootinfo structure used > >> to pass information from the bootstrap/loader to the kernel. Although > >> I'm only proposing this for the MIPS bootinfo, it's completely > >> applicable to any of them. > >> > >> What I propose is adding an optional platform extension structure: > >> bootinfo_pext, surrounded by #ifdef BOOTINFO_PEXT > > > > Any reason not to put the vendor bits into another piece of loader=20 metadata > > ? That seems the extensible way to add additional info from the loader, > > rather than extending bootinfo (as was the case pre-loader days). > > > > later, >=20 > It sounds like they're not using loader, which is probably a > reasonable thing for their environment. That doesn't stop you from adding metadata to the kernel. It is just an ar= ray=20 of variable length blobs appended after 'end'. Any boot loader can support adding metadata. --=20 John Baldwin