Julio Merino <jmmv@hispabsd.org> wrote:
>On Tue, 27 Aug 2002 20:29:17 +0200 (MEST)
>Hubert Feyrer <hubert.feyrer@informatik.fh-regensburg.de> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 27 Aug 2002, Julio Merino wrote:
>> > > I wonder if mounting a mfs _over_ a pre-generated /dev would work?
>> >
>> > What do you mean?
>> 
>> I thought of a on-disk /dev, with a mfs-based filesystem mounted (-t
>> union) over it.
>
>Hmm sounds interesting. How could this be made optional? For example,
>use 'init -d union' to use an union or something... but this may require
>a kernel option to indicate init flags?

Why would init need to know about it at all?  In fact, this can be done
today with no code changes whatsoever.  All it requires is:

1. An trimmed on-disk /dev, containing (e.g.) /dev/console and the disk
devices necessary to boot, but not the things that need to be modified
(e.g. permission changed) on the fly.

2. A suitably-trimmed MAKEDEV somewhere (doesn't have to be located in
/dev) which can make the additional devices needed by (e.g.) sshd.  If
you're thinking you'll be wanting to change this at times, I'm sure you
can find somewhere in your filesystem that is either always or at least
can be made writable.

3. A hand-rolled rc.d script, put early enough in the boot process to
run before any of the processes which need write access to /dev, that
simply does:

mount -t mfs -o union,-s=size swap /dev
( cd /dev && sh /wherever/you/put/it/MAKEDEV all-modifiable-devices )

and, voila, modifiable /dev on a read-only root, without a seven minute
wait every boot, and while still providing an way to keep the
underlying MAKEDEV file around, unmodified, for reference.  All this
without touching a single byte of init code.

jdarrow

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