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

H. Peter Anvin
2005-09-06T20:40:52Z

Alon Bar-Lev wrote:
>
> 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...
>

No, you're wrong. The boot loader can synthesize an initramfs.

> 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.

Already pushed to Andrew. I will follow it up with a patch to extend
the command line, at least to 512.

> 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?

No, I don't. It could be because one is included from assembly code in
the i386 architecture.

-hpa