kernel config question
John Baldwin
jhb at FreeBSD.org
Wed Jan 2 21:54:24 UTC 2019
On 1/2/19 1:31 PM, Robert Huff wrote:
>
> John Baldwin writes:
>
>> >> [8] In order to have a kernel that can run the 4.x binaries
>> >> needed to do an installworld, you must include the
>> >> COMPAT_FREEBSD4 option in your kernel. [...]
>>
>> > No, COMPAT_FREEBSD4 is not needed. Maybe COMPAT_FREEBSD11 is needed.
>>
>> Yes, that text needs to be made more generic to say that you will need
>> COMPAT_FREEBSD<N-1>. Though we've also had some major branches that
>> didn't get a COMPAT_FREEBSD<N> option.
>
> Are any of those still supported?
I'm not sure, but I mean more that you can't assume we will always have a
COMPAT_FREEBSD<n>. There was a COMPAT_FREEBSD11. It looks like we actually
only skipped COMPAT_FREEBSD8 to date. Perhaps we can just avoid worrying
about the lack of COMPAT_FREEBSD<N-1>.
The text does say "and so on" for newer versions, but it's probably not
clear. How about this:
Index: UPDATING
===================================================================
--- UPDATING (revision 342703)
+++ UPDATING (working copy)
@@ -1901,12 +1901,13 @@ COMMON ITEMS:
can be deleted by "make delete-old-libs", but you have to make
sure that no program is using those libraries anymore.
- [8] In order to have a kernel that can run the 4.x binaries needed to
- do an installworld, you must include the COMPAT_FREEBSD4 option in
- your kernel. Failure to do so may leave you with a system that is
- hard to boot to recover. A similar kernel option COMPAT_FREEBSD5 is
- required to run the 5.x binaries on more recent kernels. And so on
- for COMPAT_FREEBSD6 and COMPAT_FREEBSD7.
+ [8] The new kernel must be able to run existing binaries used by
+ an installworld. When upgrading across major versions, the new
+ kernel's configuration must include the correct COMPAT_FREEBSD<n>
+ option for existing binaries (e.g. COMPAT_FREEBSD11 to run 11.x
+ binaries). Failure to do so may leave you with a system that is
+ hard to boot to recover. A GENERIC kernel will include suitable
+ compatibility options to run binaries from older branches.
Make sure that you merge any new devices from GENERIC since the
last time you updated your kernel config file.
--
John Baldwin
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