Re: THE LINUX/I386 BOOT PROTOCOL - Breaking the 256 limit

Alon Bar-Lev
2005-09-06T20:23:48Z

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Chris Wedgwood wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Aug 31, 2005 at 02:29:44PM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>>
>>> I think someone on the SYSLINUX mailing list already sent a patch to
>>> akpm to make 512 the default; making it configurable would be a
>>> better idea. Feel free to send your patch through me.
>>
>>
>> So we really need this to be a configuration option? We have too many
>> of those already.
>
>
> Maybe not. Another option would simply be to bump it up significantly
> (2x isn't really that much.) 4096, maybe.
>
> -hpa
>

Hello Peter, I've written a reply before but got no response...

The idea of putting arguments in initramfs is not practical,
since the whole idea is to have the same image of system and
affecting its behavior using the boot loader...

I would like to push forward the idea to extend the
command-line size...

All we need for start is an updated version of the "THE
LINUX/I386 BOOT PROTOCOL" document that states that in the
2.02+ protocol the boot loader should set cmd_line_ptr to a
pointer to a null terminated string without any size
restriction, specifying that the kernel will read as much as
it can.

After I get this update, I will try to work with GRUB and LILO
so that they will fix their implementation. Currently they
claim that they understand that they should truncate the
string to 256.

After that I will provide my simple patch for setting the
maximum size the kernel allocates in the configuration.

BTW: Do you know why the COMMAND_LINE_SIZE constant is located
in two separate include files?

Best Regards,
Alon Bar-Lev.