Hi Horst.
>> Before I go any further with this, I would like to ask a few
>> questions relating to it:
>> 1. Is there any likelihood of this making it into the official
>> kernel, or am I just wasting my time?
> Depends, I'd say... perhaps after a long shakeout and much use.
Fair enough - I'd expect that much...
>> 2. Would I be right in thinking it's too late for either the
>> 2.2 or 2.4 kernels ???
> No way.
Good...
I've included a patch against 2.2.17 that deals with all of the
existing files and implements a version of this facility that just
prints "(Not yet implemented)" into the SysLog. The final version will
basically consist of this patch with the printk("Not yet implemeted")
replaced by a call to the routine to actually perform the dump, plus a
new file kernel/dumplog.c containing the said routine.
Note that this patch tweaks ALL of the current architecture config.in
files to replace the CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ definition with a command to
include the new arch/sysrq.in file at that point, and all the options
relating to SYSRQ are in this new file instead.
>> 5. I was wondering about providing some means of selecting
>> whether to dump to /dev/fd0 or /dev/fd1 (or others if
>> present). What would be your opinion on this?
> Keep it as simple as possible. I'd leave the option open if not
> hard, but not implement it at all at first.
OK. Initially, I'll look at dropping it strictly to /dev/fd0 and leave
the /dev/fd1 code until later.
>> 6. A while back, I developed a high-level floppy formatter
>> that produces a non-standard DOS-compatible format that
>> allows 1436k of data on a 1440k floppy, and produced a
>> bash script that would produce disks formatted in this
>> format.
>> My current plans are for SYSRQ-D to raw write direct to
>> /dev/fd0 and effectively reformat the disks in this
>> format, dropping the log file thereon in the process. I
>> don't plan on doing the low-level format, just the
>> high-level one.
> KISS, again. What use is a non-standard 1436Kb DOS format when
> writing at most 1Mb?
The said floppy formatter also works with other capacity disks, and
always minimises the system overhead for the disk size.
Also, part of my plan was to check that the disk is already in this
non-standard format, and refuse to dump if not. This would ensure that
doing so didn't overwrite somebody's master boot disk by accident, as
such disks will not normally be in this non-standard format.
> I'd just dump it raw to /dev/fd0, whoever wants to read it later
> will have all kinds of tools at hand.
> Remember:
> - Bloat
That's one reason why I was glad to note the error in the comments in
kernel/printk.c that I sent a patch to correct last week - this patch
will be MUCH simpler as a result.
> - This will have to work even in a thoroughly hosed system to be
> of any use
It's for precicely that reason that I'm working on it.
Best wishes from Riley.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Oct 31 2000 - 21:00:29 EST