Re: [Xen-users] usage of the extra parameter in vm configs

["M.A. Williamson" <maw48@xxxxxxxxx>]

> On 30 Dec 2006 15:18:20 +0000, M.A. Williamson <maw48@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > We'd actually been talking about replacing the current "root=", "extra="
> > etc. arguments with a single "cmdline=" which would contain the entire
> > kernel commandline - in the same way that a normal bootloader might.
> I think that's a good idea, because that was the next question I
> wanted to ask: what's the difference between the root variable (which
> in all examples not only contains the root, but alo the additional
> argument "ro") and extra, and why should I not  just add more
> arguments to the root variable and leave the extra arg empty?
You could. Or you could stick them all in the "extra" argument. The only 
real reason that the variables are done this way is that it decouples the 
user from the realities of Linux a little... Additional variables used to 
be used to pass IP / NFS root information on the command line but I'm not 
sure if this is still done...
The config file parser isn't *very* aware of how Linux command line syntax 
works. At some stage it may be useful to make it more aware, for purposes 
of providing more helpful configuration warnings - however, this still 
doesn't really require the separate variables.
Out of interest, would anybody on the users list object to a general shift 
towards supplying the whole command line in one variable, rather than 
piecemeal in specially named fields? We wouldn't have to break backwards 
compatibility to do this...
Cheers,
Mark

> As I understand it now, theres no big semantic difference between
> both, and they get actually "glued together" and handed over to the
> guest kernel at domain creation time.
>
> > Does this answer your question satisfactorily?
> Yes, thanks a lot!
>
> Henning
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