Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: dcatla!itwaf@gatech.edu (Bill Fulton [Sys Admin])
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: sun 4.0 multiple swap partitions
Keywords: SunOS
Message-ID: <3980@kalliope.rice.edu>
Date: 20 Jun 89 16:58:03 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 54
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 42, message 5 of 11

In article <3641@kalliope.rice.edu> alan%prism@gatech.edu (Alan M. Brown)writes:
>In article <8905190032.AA05736@rice.edu>, nassio%cfassp12@harvard.harvard.edu
>(George Nassiopoulos) writes:
  [...]
>> Also, does anyone know if the naming of the kernel matters
>> at all. i.e. what does using the line:
>> ident           GENERIC
>> do to you if the rest of the kernel is not really GENERIC?
>The naming of the kernel is entirely for your convenience.  We use the

It's my understanding that the 'GERNERIC' designation (which can be used
either with the 'ident' line or as one of the 'option' lines) is a flag
that 'gives the kernal more latitude' when it comes up. For example, I
think that you can only specifiy the '-a' boot option when the kernal is
'generic' (otherwise, the '-a' is ignored, and you are not allowed to
specify the root device). Also, I think the the keyword 'generic' can be
used in the 'config' line only when GENERIC has been specified (that's
what it seems to say in the manual) That is;

    config vmunix swap generic

can be specified, and seems to allow more flexibility when booting.

In fact, the only way I can figure out to get a diskless workstation to
boot from a server is to use kernal which has the 'GENERIC' option
specified. I have, for example, reconfiged a smaller kernal for the
diskless workstations (no sd support, etc), but I seem to have to enable
the GENERIC option, and use 'swap generic' in the config line.

Which brings up a question ...

Is there a way to explicitly declare that a workstation should use the nd
server for the root and/or swap partition? I tried

    config vmunix root on nd0 swap on sd0b

It started to boot, but failed somewhere around rc.boot, with the message
    rootmount: can't mount root

If I used a generic kernel with both root and swap on sd0, and used the -a
boot option, to specify nd0 as the root device, it apparantly also used
nd0 as the swap device, despite the kernal config.  I was going to try
playing around with /etc/fstab as an alternate approach, but, after
playing with kernal reconfigs for a few hours, I was fuzzed out; I gave up
and implemented a work-around.

This foolishness started when, last week, I tried to get a normally
diskless client to use a loaner SCSI disk for the swap device only (NOT
the root device - due to a dedicated root structure which I didn't want to
recreate on the SCSI disk).

Anybody else tried this?

Bill Fulton