Crystal Kolipe <kolip...@exoticsilicon.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 11:04:07AM +0000, Klemens Nanni wrote:
> > 10/16/23 04:02, Klemens Nanni ??????????:
> > > The current check implies one could use, e.g. SWAP or MSDOS partitions
> > > as softraid(4) chunks, but sys/dev/softraid.c always expects FS_RAID,
> > > thus using chunks with different partition types is not possible:
> > >
> > > # vmctl create -s100M disk.img
> > > # vnd=`vnconfig disk.img`
> > > # echo 'swap *' | disklabel -wAT- vnd0
> > >
> > > # disklabel $vnd | grep swap
> > > a: 204800 0 swap
> > > # bioctl -c c -l ${vnd}a softraid0
> > > softraid0: invalid metadata format
> > >
> > > Correct the check.
> > > I don't expect this to break anything.
> > > amd64 biosboot boots off standard RAID 'a' as before.
> > >
> > > Feedback? Objection? OK?
> >
> > Ping.
>
> This breaks booting off of a RAID that is not on partition 'a', on amd64.
>
> Was this intentional?
>
> For example, if you have a RAID on 'd', with no 'a' partition at all, then
> with your patch the machine becomes unbootable.
>
> The second stage bootloader doesn't automatically find the softraid volume.
> Manually booting the kernel from it results in a kernel panic when the
> kernel can't find the root filesystem.
>
> Although booting from a RAID on a non-'a' partition is not supported on all
> archs, it has worked fine on amd64 for a long time, so it's quite possible
> that people have machines deployed that boot from other RAID partitions.
>
> This change would unexpectedly break them, and it would potentially be quite
> painful for any users who upgrade to 7.5 and find out afterwards that their
> machine doesn't boot, because the work-around would likely be to boot the
> ramdisk kernel, and unpack mdec/boot from the base package of the previous
> release then re-run installboot specifying the old mdec/boot.
>
> That wouldn't be at all obvious to users without a lot of OpenBSD experience.
What user without OpenBSD experience is booting from 'd'?
Which also poses the question -- what user with OpenBSD experience
is booting from 'd'?
Why?
You say "quite possible that people have machines deployed that boot
from other RAID partitions"
Who? Just you?
