versioned fs and /boot minor issues

Daniel Drake dsd at laptop.org
Tue Nov 10 04:11:58 EST 2009


Hi,

I implemented the partitioned /boot layout based on the wiki notes and
the end result is as follows:

On the root partition (and in the OS tree tarball), the boot files go
in /versions/pristine/x/boot which of course gets hardlinked
into /versions/run and becomes /boot on the resultant booted system (but
only temporarily, read on...)

The build system copies those files out and puts them on the boot
partition according to the wiki docs (i.e. on the boot partition, the
stuff is kept under /boot-versions/x and /boot is a symlink to
boot-versions/x)

During boot, the boot partition is mounted at /boot (masking the files
that were there 'underneath), so in order to get to the kernel and
related files, you now have to look in /boot/boot-versions/x
or /boot/boot

In the last stages of olpc-update, files from the newly downloaded OS
at /versions/pristine/NEW/boot are copied to a
new /boot/boot-versions/NEW directory and the /boot/boot symlink updated
accordingly


We are having a couple of minor issues and I'm wondering if that is how
you envisioned it.

The first issue is that various things expect to be able to
read /boot/olpc_build (including Sugar and olpc-pwr-log) but now this is
at /boot/boot/olpc_build

Secondly, when testing new kernels by installing their RPM, the new
kernel gets installed to /boot/ whereas in order to be used for next
boot it needs to then be moved into /boot/boot


We could fix the first with a symlink and the 2nd does not really need
to be fixed (our manual kernel install process has always been that you
install the RPM then you move the kernel to some 'correct' place)

Or alternatively we could mount the boot partition at /bootpart, /boot
would not be a mount point (i.e. would show the contents
of /versions/run/x/boot). Then olpc-update would perform its final
manipulatations on /bootpart instead of /boot, /boot/olpc_build would
work OK, and new kernel installs would simply have to be copied
from /boot to /bootpart/boot by hand (similar to the old system of
having to copy from /boot to /versions/boot/current/boot)

Thoughts/comments?
Thanks,
Daniel





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