Installation of kernel symbols file in a separate directory [Was: Re: Experiences with FreeBSD 9.0-BETA2]

[Arnaud Lacombe]

Hi,

[Moving the discussion on -hackers@]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Arnaud Lacombe <lacombar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy at acm.org> wrote:
>> On 2011-Sep-26 19:48:23 -0400, Benjamin Kaduk <kaduk at MIT.EDU> wrote:
>>>On Mon, 26 Sep 2011, Arnaud Lacombe wrote:
>>>> The problem with /boot on a dedicated partition is the the kernel,
>>>> since at least 8.x, is installed by default with a vast majority of
>>>> crap. That's all the .symbols, that 99% of FreeBSD users will never
>>>> uses.
>>>
>>>My recollection is that this is because kensmith forgot to take
>>>'makeoptions DEBUG=-g' out of GENERIC when branching stable/8, and no one
>>
>> Not quite - 'DEBUG=-g' was a deliberate move to make it easier for
>> developers to talk users through faultfinding kernel issues.
>>
>> The correct fix is to install the .symbols files somewhere other than
>> /boot/kernel - unfortunately, no-one has developed the necessary
>> changes to the kernel installation.
>>
> I did too, will put patches online soon.
>
available here:

https://github.com/lacombar/freebsd/commit/c1d5c4857361028dc40941273dd2ab9576c687fd

This patch adds a KODIR_SYMBOLS variables which is to the kernel and
modules .symbols files what the KODIR variable is to the kernel and
modules files. By default ${KODIR_SYMBOLS} = ${KODIR}.

 - Arnaud