possible loader regression on RELENG_7_2_0_RELEASE

[Hiroki Sato]

During upgrading boxes in allbsd.org to RELENG_7_2_0_RELEASE I found
one of them could not boot at the loader stage.  The error messages
issued by the loader after "make installkernel + make installworld +
reboot" were the following:

|Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf
|/boot/kernel/kernel text=0x7cbd7c data=0xcece0+0x67940
|readin failed
|
|elf32_loadimage: read failed
|/boot/kernel/kernel text=0x7cbd7c data=0xcece0+0x67940
|readin failed
|
|elf32_loadimage: read failed
|Unable to load a kernel!

The normal loader prompt was displayed after that and I can enter
commands, but neither the kernel nor some old kernels which I
confirmed they worked fine got loaded.

Then I tried a livefs CDROM, but the same error occurred at the loader
stage.  So I tried 7.1R CDROM instead, mounted the root file system on
the hard drive, and copied a loader binary from 7.1R.  It worked with
no problem with the RELENG_7_2_0_RELEASE kernel.

The motherboard was Supermicro P4DPE (Xeon 2.4GHz x 2, 3GB RAM).  The
installed version was FreeBSD/i386.

I did not narrow down the cause yet due to the time was limited, but
it was reproducible and probably hardware-dependent.  Replacing the
loader binary with the old one worked as a workaround, so I guess
there may be a regression around the boot loader.  Just a report.

--
| Hiroki SATO
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