few ideas for zfsloader

[Julian Elischer]

On 4/29/10 9:18 AM, Andriy Gapon wrote:

>
> So, right now, I do not see a way to properly support nextboot with ZFS.
> We probably should emit some warning when nextboot.conf is created on ZFS that
> there will not be automatic recovery if kernel boot fails.

>
> Some really weird alternative ideas:
> 1. Write nextboot flag in some other place (NVRAM, special sectors of HDD)

this is what nextboot originally did before it was broken^H^H^H^H^H^H
rewritten. I stored the information in sector 1 (not 0) of the drive.
One version I never finished stored it in a special 'nextboot'
partition.

> 2. Use time-limited nextboot - e.g. there is a timestamp in nextboot.conf
> and it is honored until the timestamp expires.
> But I won't seriously consider these.

the timestamp idea good. I considered doing it.
myself for the original nextboot. It may be annoying having to wait
10 minutes before recovering from a bad upgrade, but it would be
simple, and better than not recovering.