From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 1 21:40:15 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE25116A563; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 21:40:15 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp4.server.rpi.edu (smtp4.server.rpi.edu [128.113.2.4]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E8BC43D41; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 21:40:13 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.netel.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by smtp4.server.rpi.edu (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id i81LeBxF017265; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 17:40:11 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: drosih@mail.rpi.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20040901193445.GC12483@odin.ac.hmc.edu> References: <20040901193445.GC12483@odin.ac.hmc.edu> Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 17:40:10 -0400 To: Brooks Davis , arch@freebsd.org From: Garance A Drosihn Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . canit . ca) cc: scottl@freebsd.org Subject: Re: if_data size issues X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 21:40:16 -0000 At 12:34 PM -0700 9/1/04, Brooks Davis wrote: > >Julian raises a valid point that this can cause problems for updates >over the network. At this point we disagree on the severity of the >problem. > >He says old binaries must work with new kernels. I argue that >network updates are an edge case, a critically important one, but >an edge case non-the-less. IMO it is a more significant than just an edge-case, particularly since it includes nfs-mounted installs. But that's just MO. >Because it is an edge case, I believe it would be acceptable to >require an extra step in the upgrade process. That step is simply >installing a new ifconfig binary. My immediate reaction is that we could probably do something like this, although we would have to think a bit about the best way to get it done. We could certainly install the fix from Peter in the 4.10-stable and 4.10-errata branches, for instance. It shouldn't hurt anything to have that fix installed ASA-SufficientlyTested. >I would appreciate other opinions on this issue as we need to either >back out both of these changes or begin MFCing the ifconfig changes. Perhaps we could do something like have the update process require an "ifconfig5" (or some other unique name), and use that if it exists. Not sure that is a great idea, but it gives us an easy way to make sure the system has the right binary. 'installkernel' could just stop if the needed binary is not on the destination system. Some of the tricks I used in the 64-bTT upgrade on sparc64 might also be of interest, although I have to run right now so I can't come up with the specifics at the moment. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu