> On Fri, Jan 17, 2003 at 12:47:14AM -0800, Doug Barton wrote:
>>While I don't really like the idea of copying files around, it occurred to
>>me that we could do something similar by defining different rc.conf files
>>at boot time. This eliminates the chief problems I have with the
>>bootprofile approach, which are mounting / rw very early, and the copying
>>of files so early in the process.


Take a careful look at the diskless support already
in the FreeBSD tree (which works something like
BootProfile: copies stuff from /conf/etc/* to /etc/
early in the boot phase). I personally have
never really liked that approach, for exactly the
reasons you list.

Integrating support for this into the standard
rc.conf would be nice.

For diskless, the general idea is to define
configurations for each IP address or domain name.
How about altering /etc/defaults/rc.conf to
load:
* /etc/rc.conf (always)
* /etc/rc.conf.${IP} (for each bound IP address)
* /etc/rc.conf.${hostname}

That might cover the needs of diskless folks without
requiring all of that file copying (still doesn't
address variable fstabs or the like... hmmmm).
You should talk to the diskless maintainers about
this idea, as well.

Apart from diskless (or maybe bootable CDROM?), I
don't see a lot of use for varying boot profiles.
One of my biggest problems with Solaris/Linux-style
'runlevels' is that they never really get used.
In my experience, noone ever uses more than three
profiles:
1) Off
2) "repair mode" (aka "single-user mode"), and
3) "normal operation."
We've already got those.

Tim Kientzle