Re: Which version is BOOTX64.efi?

On Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:52:30 -0700
"Mel P." <list_freebsd@bluerosetech.com> wrote:

> On 2025-08-27 9:13, Warner Losh wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 10:00 AM Mel P. <list_freebsd@bluerosetech.com 
> > <mailto:list_freebsd@bluerosetech.com>> wrote:
> > 
> >     If loaders had the version and patch level hardcoded into them it
> >     during
> >     the build like how that information is hardcoded into freebsd-version,
> >     would that be a reproducible build?  If so, can EFI loaders with ZFS
> >     support also have the OpenZFS version?  For example:
> > 
> >     FreeBSD/amd64 EFI loader, Revision 1.1, 13.5-RELEASE, OpenZFS-2.1.15
> > 
> >     Those two version numbers would be immensely helpful when moving disks
> >     or verifying upgrades.
> > 
> > 
> > Yea, that's not going to happen. The loader is independent of the 
> > release, in many ways, 13.5-RELEASE comes from the kernel, and this 
> > would introduce a coupling between the two. We generally don't have the 
> > OpenZFS version available. We don't sync to OpenZFS releases, 
> > necessarily. Also, the boot loader only makes limited use of the OpenZFS 
> > code, so its version wouldn't necessarily help you. There's often a lag 
> > between OpenZFS code hitting the tree and the boot loader understanding 
> > new items introduced by that import.
> 
> This is very good to know, thank you.
> 
> > We can report the _FreeBSD_version for the tree we build in, though. And 
> > that will give you information. We don't currently bump it, though, when 
> > we add ZFS features to the whitelist of enabled features, but could. 
> > This would make it still reproducible.
> 
> __FreeBSD_version would be just as helpful.
> 
> That feature whitelist is exactly the information needed when figuring 
> out if a given loader can boot a given pool and fs.  Would it be 
> possible to include that in the loader in a way that strings or some 
> other utility can find it?

Unfortunately, __FreeBSD_version is NOT promised to be bumped everytime
loader/bootcode receive new ZFS read-incompatible features support.

This is why I previously commented with git hash and/or n number.

-- 
Tomoaki AOKI    <junchoon@dec.sakura.ne.jp>