Subject: re: which kernel booted?
To: Darren Reed <darrenr@reed.wattle.id.au>
From: matthew green <mrg@eterna.com.au>
List: tech-kern
Date: 01/02/2002 14:10:29
In some of the ports, there exists machdep.booted_kernel to tell you which
kernel was booted. The problem is that this isn't always set or can just
be plain wrong as this can be changed by the loader. Given this, I'd like
to pass the kernel image name being loaded to the kernel (sort of like how
programs get argv[0]) so that machdep.booted_kernel is always set and always
correct. Can anyone see any problems with doing this, aside making the list
of boot params for the kernel 1 longer ? Hmmm, should it be called
kern.booted_kernel (since it wouldn't be hardware dependant) instead ?
sometimes the kernel image isn't available to the NetBSD userland
at all. eg, a shark netbooted kernel doens't have to exist in
the machine's / at all. i might have loaded my kernel over the
ethernet and then used a local root filesystem... so while you can
add to the times when this _is_ available, you can never make it
always possible.
.mrg.