On 19-Jun-07, at 10:48 AM, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> What do you mean by "write" the dictionary?  Writing to the file
> system?  I assume not, given your last paragraph -- and that would be
> the correct decision.  The boot loader should *not* do anything like
> that.

Don't worry, it doesn't. You must successfully boot the system to  
update the persistent boot properties database.

Cheers,
Jared