Theo, thank you for your quick reply and clarification.

> Theo de Raadt <[email protected]> wrote:
> Christian Gut <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> I just had a look at the new boot loader for octeon and got some questions.
>> 
>> As far as I can see, the current situation is like this:
>> - boot.conf is always read from partion a of the booted disk (which is the 
>> root device we got from uboot via /dev/octboot)
> 
> I t should be read from /etc in the root filesystem.
> 
> Are you saying it is read from somewhere else?

I did not question that, I just wanted to know if my understanding of how the 
boot loader finds the root filesystem is correct.

>> a) read boot.conf from the device and partition where the bootloader was 
>> found?
>> -  this would mean, from the msdos partition on octeon devices
> 
> It is supposed to be read from /etc, which is in the root filesystem.
> 
> Why are you proposing it be read from some strange location???

As far as I understand, you can use installboot -r to install the boot loader 
onto a different partition. Let’s call it /boot. And then you can have 
/etc/boot.conf over there, too.

> You really aren't explaining your usage case.

Use case: have two separate installations on the same system. Switch between 
them using boot.conf. This could be for testing and development purposes or to 
gain resilience if one of the filesystems is messed up.

>> b) set the root file system from the “device" variable which is set in the 
>> boot loader
>> -  this would mean, if I “set device sd0d”, it boots the image from sd0d and 
>> sets the root file system also to that one.
> 
> There's probably some magic to choose it. You are proposing that people have 
> to set
> more uboot variables??  That isn't fun maybe we give up on the platform..

Of course no more uboot variables. My idea was, that the boot loader is 
accompanied by a boot.conf on the same filesystem. Isn't that the reason, why i 
can „set device“ in boot.conf?

>> If so, is this still work in progress or do you want to behave differently 
>> on octeon?
> 
> You start by describing it working just like amd64.  Then you embark on 
> wanting
> it to work different from amd64.  And now you ask why it is different?
> Confused.

Default situation in amd64 is like you described, but installboot -r can change 
that.

I hope I could clarify my idea, thank you for your patience.

Kind Regards,
Christian

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