OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Storage
JFS failing in a disastrous way - without the user knowing
Lars:
--- Quote from: Dave Yeo on November 30, 2022, 10:01:34 pm ---
--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on November 30, 2022, 08:31:31 pm ---Hi
I quickly installed "CPUTemp_wdgt_1-1-0.zip" with Warpin 1.0.24 (ArcaOS 5.0.6) and I confirm it removed UNICODE.SYS from my config.sys.
Reverted everything, upgraded to WarpIn 1.0.26 and I got the same thing. UNICODE.SYS gets removed.
I also don't see anything strange on the CPUTEMP WarpIn script, just the "CONFIGSYS="DEVICE=?:\OS2\rdmsr.sys | UNIQUE" which should not remove UNICODE.SYS.
Should it be reported as WarpIn bug?
Regards
--- End quote ---
Warpin is working as it should based on discussion on the testers list. What happens is if rdmsr.sys is not installed, it matches up with the first *.sys in config.sys and replaces that with rdmsr.sys. Usually it is unicode.sys at the top of config.sys.
--- End quote ---
That is a very unfortunate side effect of specifying UNIQUE when "DEVICE" is the key string to look for because "DEVICE" will typically occur multiple times in config.sys. WarpIn should better be changed to do nothing if UNIQUE is specified and the key string is found multiple times. That is at least safe behaviour.
And if UNIQUE(xxxx) is specified, it should be changed to create the target string if no matching source string statement is found.
Andi B.:
If you fear that something changes your config.xxx and you overlook to check the changes before reboot you can also start a rexx script from your startup.cmd which parses your current config.xxx. Though I don't know how to find out which config.xxx file is used by osinit.... But maybe simpler than changing jfs.ifs. Moreover chances are high that the output text from jfs.ifs while booting will be overlooked pretty easy.
Dariusz Piatkowski:
--- Quote from: Andi B. on December 01, 2022, 05:16:10 pm ---If you fear that something changes your config.xxx and you overlook to check the changes before reboot you can also start a rexx script from your startup.cmd which parses your current config.xxx...
--- End quote ---
You bring up a reason for why for every install I actually save a copy of CONFIG.SYS first and then afterwards compare the new copy to that backup.
This of course could be automated just as you say with a little REXX script very easily.
Lars:
Sorry, but this is ridiculous.
If JFS.IFS can easily fail in a catastrophic way, then it is necessary to prevent that or at least to mediate the risk.
A new user would have no clue of what is going on. But maybe everyone has already accepted that there will be no new users...
Anyway, after thinking about it a bit more:
JFS.IFS can attempt to attach to UNICODE.SYS via a dehelp call and that can already be done on FS_INIT (call for initializing JFS.IFS) which is executed already on bootup.
If that attach fails you know that UNICODE.SYS is not loaded, display a warning message and even force the user to hit Return to continue boot process.
That takes around 10 lines of code in JFS.IFS.
But I am not the master of disaster. That is AN. They have the source code. And of course, it's closed source
Andi B.:
I wouldn't call it ridiculous. I would say this is another shortcoming/bug/problem/nuisance of one part/program of our platform. Of course it may be easy to improve this situation with Lars proposed changes. No clue if David will implement it when Lars creates a ticket.
It's good that Lars shares his experience here to tell others about some problems and how to circumvent it. That's what a forum is good for.
But I also see a lot of other shortcomings. And when I were in the position to give priorities, this one would have a low priority. We only can wait and see what David says about this. Or is there any chance to get access to the latest JFS sources?
--- Quote ---display a warning message and even force the user to hit Return to continue boot process
--- End quote ---
I fear this can be a problem with USB keyboards. The systems I have do not serve USB keyboards (with OS/2) until the end of the boot process. Every such "hit return to continue" condition while booting (while loading all the drivers from config.sys) needs the old PS/2 keyboard which luckily is also attached to step over. Here there is no chance to respond to such messages with the USB keyboard.
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