linux-kernel - Re: 2.6.19-git13: uts banner changes break SLES9 (at least)

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Date:	Mon, 11 Dec 2006 13:16:17 -0800
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>, Andy Whitcroft <apw@...dowen.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...l.org>,
	Herbert Poetzl <herbert@...hfloor.at>,
	Olaf Hering <olaf@...fle.de>, Andi Kleen <ak@...e.de>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...l.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Steve Fox <drfickle@...ibm.com>
Subject: Re: 2.6.19-git13: uts banner changes break SLES9 (at least)

Theodore Tso wrote:
> 
> As far as whether or not it should be _mandatory_, to be able to pull
> out the version information from an arbitrary bzImage file, can folks
> agree that it would at least be a nice-to-have feature?  Sometimes
> when you're out in the field you don't know what you're faced with,
> especially if you're dealing with a customer who likes to build their
> own kernels, and who might not have, ah, a very well defined release
> process.  Sure, you can _call_ them incompetent, and it might even be
> true, but wouldn't be nice if there was an easy way to look at a
> bzImage file and be able to tell what kernel version it was built
> from?
> 

There is a documented procedure for doing exactly that.

See Documentation/i386/boot.txt for details; there is a pointer in the 
header which points to a cleartext string, even if the kernel is compressed.

	-hpa
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