Re: [PATCH] grub + FreeBSD's loader(8) + ZFS root

["Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko" <phcoder@gmail.com>]

On 07.04.2010 22:21, Navdeep Parhar wrote:
> 2010/4/7 Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko<phcoder@gmail.com>:
>> Navdeep Parhar wrote:
>>> Hello grub-devel,
>>>
>>> Right now it's not possible to boot using FreeBSD's loader(8) from a ZFS
>>> root filesystem.  Grub doesn't indicate to the loader that there is a
>>> ZFS root involved and consequently the loader fails to find the kernel.
>>> The attached patch fixes this.  It does not affect those that boot the
>>> kernel directly.  This is only for users that want to boot using
>>> FreeBSD's loader.
>>>
>>> Why would you want to?  IMHO it is much simpler to boot indirectly using
>>> the loader because in that case grub does not have to deal with
>>> device.hints, kernel modules, kFreeBSD.xxx style variables,
>>> /boot/zfs/zpool.cache, etc.  As a FreeBSD user, I'm used to putting this
>>> information in the "normal" config files (/boot/loader.conf, device.hints,
>>> etc.) and not in a grub.cfg file. Grub only needs to know where the loader
>>> is, nothing else:
>>>
>>> menuentry "FreeBSD 8" {
>>>         search -s -l fbsd8
>>>         kfreebsd -D /@/boot/zfsloader
>>> }
>>> (fbsd8 is the name of the ZFS root pool)
>>>
>>>
>> Eternal chainloading isn't the way to go. It limits grub usefullness and
>> scope and is to be used only when no alternative exists. In this case
>> the right direction would be to make a small C module to parse boot(8)
>> config or a shell script for 30_osprober.in to do the same job
> Sure, chainloading doesn't have to be the preferred way of booting an
> OS, but it shouldn't fail without a good reason either.  Right now
> FreeBSD can be chainloaded from a UFS root but not from ZFS root.
> That's all that I'm trying to fix here.  This patch doesn't imply that
> chainloading is *the* way to load FreeBSD - just that it is a usable
> alternate to direct loading, even from a ZFS root.
I've added this patch but only because since we support aout 
/boot/loader it makes little sense not to support zfsloader but it's not 
a recommended way to boot in either case.
> Regards,
> Navdeep
>
>
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-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko