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From: ekrell@ulysses.UUCP (Eduardo Krell)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Query: Configure a SysV R3.0 kernel - (nf)
Message-ID: <1448@ulysses.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Nov-86 11:02:40 EST
Article-I.D.: ulysses.1448
Posted: Sun Nov  2 11:02:40 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Nov-86 00:31:36 EST
References: <7300001@konech.UUCP>
Reply-To: ekrell@ulysses (Eduardo Krell)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 32

In article <7300001@konech.UUCP> thomas@konech.UUCP writes:
>
>Has anybody out there some experience in configuring a SysV R3.0
>kernel with the mkboot(1M) et al. utilities ?

I do it just about every day.

>My job is to port these configuration programs and I'd like to understand
>what they are doing and how they do what they do (listing is not of much help).

look at the master.d(4) man page. It explains the format of the files in
the /etc/master.d directory and what their contents mean. For every file in
/boot (the kernel + device drivers + modules) named FOO there is a
corresponding file named foo (lower case) in /etc/master.d.
mkboot(1M) uses the /etc/master.d file to generate a new kernel (or device
driver or module) from the old one or from a ".o" file.

Basically, the /etc/master.d/foo file contains the sizes of various arrays
and values of certain configurable parameters that are defined in the foo
device driver or module. The idea is to avoid recompiling source code
every time you want to change one of these parameters (like max number of
processes per user, number of RFS resources mounted locally, etc.).
The source files do not define these parameters but instead they are
declared as extern. mkboot resolves these external references by looking
at the /etc/master.d/foo file for these values.

If you need to know how this is done, you'll have to read the source code.
-- 
    
    Eduardo Krell                   AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill

    {ihnp4,seismo,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell