Where/how to submit proposed patches to Nanobsd provided files?
Date: Tue, 13 May 2025 13:40:32 UTC
I've put some time in on the "Nanobsd" build process files that do a few
things:
1. Support efi dual-boot mode (EFI or not) while keeping an MBR
partition layout so older devices can still boot the media and also keep
the data partition. Basically, set up Partition 4 as an extended "BSD"
partition with "a" (cfg) and "d" (data, if non-zero size) so they both
work. This involved essentially a rewrite of the "legacy" file entirely
since the partition creation was done through awk basically emitting a
script it then executed; it was much easier to, due to the different
types involved, just do "nah", make a calculation for the code segments,
subtract off space for the EFI partition and cfg area and then use
what's left for data.
2. Put the EFI partition in slot 3 thus the "dual image, online update"
capacity is unperturbed. Place the loader in
EFI/BOOT/{architecture-specific-name} as defined in the config file.
This is harmless if the machine is CSM boot but if its EFI it will find
it and boot using it.
3. Update the "updatepx" files distributed to look for an EFI partition
on the NanoBSD device and, if found, set loader.env which should then
cause the EFI loader to use the correct load partition since the
"active" flag is ignored otherwise.
Should I put these up somewhere for possible review and inclusion? I
use this to build bootable sticks or SD cards for firewall appliances
that run "read-only" and thus are power-fail safe, and have tested
against both a commodity EFI-boot-only dual-NIC "NUC" style PC and also
the older pcEngines apu2 series.
--
Karl Denninger
karl@denninger.net
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