Subject: Re: miniroot for NetBSD/i386?
To: Hubert Feyrer <feyrer@cs.stevens.edu>
From: Igor Sobrado <igor@string1.ciencias.uniovi.es>
List: port-i386
Date: 12/10/2005 21:20:45
In message <Pine.LNX.4.61.0512102050160.1950@m24s24.vlinux.de>, Hubert Feyrer writes:
> On Sat, 10 Dec 2005, Igor Sobrado wrote:
> >> ===> # cat <boot-big.fs >/dev/wd0b
> > [...]
> >
> > Just curious... why a cat(1) instead of a "dd if=boot-big.fs of=/dev/..."?
> > dd(1) seems more robust to raw copy filesystems to/from drives.
>
> Try using tab completion with dd. :)
No problem at all! dd if=/dev/rand<tab> -> dd if=/dev/random ... :-)
(pdksh 5.2.14... I am more accustomed to the Esc-Esc sequence yet
but as you asked about *tab* completion...)
> No idea what you mwan about robustness...
I was thinking on cat(1) as a catenation (what a synonym for concatenation!)
command for files. I suppose that it works with binaries and that block
size is not an issue but I certainly trust on dd(1) for copying device
related information. I remember some issues with cat(1) in other Unix
flavour some years (perhaps a decade) ago when copying raw binary data.
On an unrelated issue: I really enjoyed the column of Steven M. Bellovin
(published with Matt Blaze and Susan Landau) on the november issue of
Communications of the ACM. A fine analysis of the consequences of a
bad cryptography policy in weakening Internet security. Nice to see
that people as him is working closely with TNF. I liked his column
on spamming, phishing, authentication and privacy on CACM on december
2004 too.
Cheers,
Igor.