booting kernel(s)

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Baruch" == Baruch Siach <baruch at tkos.co.il> writes:

 Baruch> A partial solution is to use initramfs (see the kernel
 Baruch> Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt). You can
 Baruch> mount your rootfs from the /init script of the initramfs. Then,
 Baruch> if mount fails because of a corrupt rootfs, you can mount your
 Baruch> rescue rootfs instead, or just run whatever rescue application
 Baruch> you want directly from initramfs.

This only works if mount does a complete rootfs check, which isn't the
case. In the typical situation of a power loss in the middle of an
update, the superblock will normally be valid and you will only discover
the corruption when you start accessing files.

 Baruch> Another partial solution is a to use a hardware watchdog, and a
 Baruch> userspace watchdog ping process. Then, upon boot you may check
 Baruch> whether this is a normal power-on reset or a watchdog reset,
 Baruch> and load the appropriate kernel.

That's imho a better solution, and pretty simply to implement without
any adverse affects on the startup time, whereas the CRC checks do add
to the startup time.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard