Re: Updating RPi boot materials, was Re: RPI4 panic on boot with -current

On 2022-Apr-9, at 16:54, Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 2022-Apr-9, at 15:17, bob prohaska <fbsd@www.zefox.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, Apr 09, 2022 at 01:59:10PM -0700, Mark Millard wrote:
>>> On 2022-Apr-9, at 08:44, bob prohaska <fbsd@www.zefox.net> wrote:
>>> 
>> 
>>>> Even if one knows which to select and build from ports the
>>>> make install command doesn't really install; the admin still
>>>> has to know what files to copy where.
>>> 
>>> With good reason for where: the msdosfs file system is not part
>>> of FreeBSD's file systems (UFS or ZFS) and there is no standard
>>> mount point for the msdosfs in FreeBSD's file system.
>>> 
>> 
>> I must be missing something here. On the Pi2, Pi3 and Pi4 images
>> the msdos partition is always mounted at /boot/msdos with /boot
>> part of UFS and the msdos partition under it. Are you  referring 
>> to other platforms?  
>> 
> 
> pkg and such is not limited to RPi* contexts. pkg and such do
> not have a bunch of logic based on identifying if it is a RPi*
> or . . . or not and doing different things on that basis. What
> is it supposed to do for a Rock64, for example?
> 
> But it is not just that which is at issue . . .
> 
> I do not have even one example of an aarch64 FreeBSD installation
> that is limited to booting just one type of aarch64 system. The
> exact same FreeBSD UFS/ZFS media can be moved between systems
> and boot almost any of them: HoneyComb, MACCHIATObin Double Shot,
> various RPi4B's, a RPi3B, and a RPi2B v1.2. (The Rock64 would be
> in that list if I booted via USB2. But booting it from USB3 is
> special, requiring a FreeBSD kernel that is not on the media
> plugged into the USB3 port. But with that kernel, U-Boot, and
> EFI related material in place on the same media as that extra
> kernel copy, again all the USB3 aarch64 UFS/ZFS root file systems
> can be booted. The media with the extra kernel is not as portable.)
> 
> So how are pkg or other such to deal with updating such generally
> bootable media?

I should have explicitly noted: How likely is that that I'd happen
to always do FreeBSD updates on a aarch64 RPi* instead of one of
the other systems, especially the faster ones? Is pkg to notice and
update RPi* boot materials because the updated system could also
boot an aarch64 RPi*?

This better illustrates what I'm referring to when I reference pkg
and the like identifying contexts and handling a variety of them.
Should it be checking if it happens to be running on a RPi* and
behave differently than it would on other types of systems (same
boot media)?

> Or: Say that the RPi* has a msdosfs on its USB device that is
> able to be used for booting. But that, at the time, there is
> also a microsd card present that capable of being used for
> booting, at least for the RPi* firmware and u-boot.bin stages.
> What sort of activity is pkg supposed to do to identify the
> context? How would pkg even identify, say, which way FreeBSD
> had been booted?
> 
> The early stages of RPi* booting are outside FreeBSD's direct
> control and there are a lot of possibilities.
> 
> Nothing in FreeBSD says that /boot/msdos should exist or be the
> mount point used as far as I know. It is just something that the
> snapshot/PRERELEASE/BETA/RC/RELEASE images happen to currently,
> do by the free choice of the author(s) involved.
> 
> In fact, if you tried to use bsdinstall to set up a RPi*
> context, it would not set up something like the
> snapshots/PRERELEASEs/BETAs/RCs/RELEASEs as far as I
> know.
> 
> Nothing says that RPi*'s have to be set up the same as the
> snapshot/PRERELEASE/BETA/RC/RELEASE images. The potential
> differences in question are not part of FreeBSD.
> 
> Another common convention is /boot/efi (especially when the
> msdosfs invovled has the FreeBSD efi boot loader as well).
> FreeBSD does now have some predefined behavior for this
> convention.
> 
> What if nothing is mounted to /boot/msdos or to /boot/efi
> at the time (say, disabled in /etc/fstab)? How much analysis
> of the context is pkg or such to do and adjust for?
> 
> The FreeBSD loader.efi has the same sort of "there is no
> fixed place for it" issue. Other than the /boot/efi use,
> there is no automatic update of loader.efi either. This is
> largely because the copy used to boot is not in a FreeBSD
> UFS/ZFS file system at all --but in some msdosfs file
> system, possibly with a special partition type.



===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com