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Date:      Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:28:44 +1000 (EST)
From:      "Daniel O'Callaghan" <danny@panda.hilink.com.au>
To:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: on the subject of changes to -RELEASEs...
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.970411111734.10264f-100000@panda.hilink.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <199704110021.JAA07339@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>

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On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, Michael Smith wrote:

> Jordan K. Hubbard stands accused of saying:
> > > how about making these "well known" files such as /etc/resolv.conf,
> > > /etc/host.conf and other stuff symlinks into /var/etc ? This is
> 
> NOOO!  I just nuked my SCO ODT partition; I do _not_ want to play "you
> are in a maze of twisty symlinks, all different" again for a _long_
> time.

This might sound like a super hack, but given all of the other 
suggestions in this thread, I'll throw it in for consideration.

I wanted to set up a machine with ro / and /usr.  Because unionfs does 
not work well (and I'm not hacker enough to fix it, or I would consider 
it) I made a small /etc partition which can be mounted rw.  At boot time,

wd0a:/etc/rc execs wd0a:/boot/rc.boot

wd0a:/boot/rc.boot mounts wd0s1e on /etc and execs wd0a:/etc/rc.continue

If /etc fails to mount, wd0a:/etc is used to boot into an emergency mode 
which has enough stuff in it to log into our terminal server, and send 
mail to me, so I can telnet in and fix the dirty filesystems.  

It has saved me an hour's drive to the customer's site a couple of times. 
(Customer pulls plug on their gateway to use the vacuum cleaner or
something.)

Now this is a *real* headache, but if init started its boot process from 
wd0a:/boot/rc which mounted /etc and continued, the headache would be 
less, and read-only / would move close to reality.

Danny




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