Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Mon, 15 Dec 1997 18:33:46 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au (Darren Reed)
Cc:        gurney_j@resnet.uoregon.edu, avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Bus/Processor specific I/O methods - was Re: Beginning SPARC port
Message-ID:  <199712151833.LAA19433@usr05.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <199712150750.XAA01781@hub.freebsd.org> from "Darren Reed" at Dec 15, 97 06:50:36 pm

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> Well, the Solaris2 kernel is 600k (/platform/sun4m/kernel/unix) for 2.5.1,
> but /platform/sun4m is 4.5M in size with another 1.5M in /usr/kernel.
> Personally, I find as the number of files required to boot into single
> user increases, the greater the chance of shit happening on a bad crash
> and the system becoming unable to boot itself.  Personally, I think that
> the boot device and root fs should always be "in" the kernel so that if
> someone has nuked all your modules, you can still get up into single user
> mode.

Mount the root read-only, and you will have the same guarantees.

Implement soft updates, and you will have the same guarantees.

The statement "shit happens" only applies when you let your guard
down; you have to make a conscious decision to do this.

Let's note, also, that Solaris can be recovered, easily, from CDROM in
case of this type of Spamming of the kernel...


> I think that whilst the above goal is interesting (and perhaps worthwhile),
> there are already problems which need to be solved for LKM's which aren't,
> as yet, such as merging LKM symbols so that gdb on the kernel is sane and
> fixing up crash dumps..

Both of these are relatively easy to accomplish using John Polstra's
ELF implementation.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199712151833.LAA19433>