On Mon, 6 Mar 2000, Jan Harkes wrote:

> Also cfs/repair etc. will stop working as they talk to venus through a
> special control file in /coda. Is your cache stored in that ram-disk as
> well? Why not avoid the chroot and create some symlinks like:
> 
> /usr -> /coda/usr
> /home -> /coda/home
> 

I have the cache on the ramdisk. I actually strace'd venus the other day
when I ran into a problem with it mounting, and discovered that
/coda/.CONTROL file ;)

> > I'd like to eliminate NFS as much as possible.. for the running system.
> 
> If you use initrd to pack the initial ramdisk image with the kernel, you
> shouldn't need NFS.
> 

Yep I think I might eventually do that. :)
 
The real goal here is to move to a complete coda system, and for example
avoid that dreaded situation where the NFS server is down and the system
would otherwise be unusable. Unless the partition was mounted as 'soft'
instead of 'hard' I suppose, in linux anyway, which uses udp instead of
tcp. But essentially the unix prompt stops responding when that happens.

The other thing I was going to do was fill up the /dev stuff (using
/dev/pts as well by the way, but remember there is also a /dev/ptmx file
that goes along with that technique..) on a ramdisk, and then mount that
ramdisk once I chroot into /coda.

But now that you pointed out the .CONTROL file, and booting from initrd
(complete ramdisk) in the first place.. I see no reason to do the chroot
jail stuff. Goodbye NFS :)