uploaders

loaders-update is a tool designed to keep the FreeBSD bootcodes and loaders up-to-date.

Usage and modes

loaders-update mode [-m efi_mount_dir] [-s loaders_source_dir]

mode can be one of:

• show-me – show but do not run commands (change nothing)
• shoot-me – run interactively (with the option of changing nothing)

It has the following options:

• option -m to specify the mount point of the ESP
  • default: /mnt
• option -s to specify the path to loader-related files
  • default: /boot

Use cases and capabilities

• AMD64 only (because I don't have other hardware for testing)
• GUID Partition Table (GPT) only
• BIOS boot
• UEFI boot
• check all disks
• mount the ESP, if not already mounted by fstab(5)
• if loader-related files are present in efi/, list the files
• attempt to identify whether a loader-related file is FreeBSD-specific
  • if not specific, ignore the file
• if the FreeBSD loader on an ESP has a nonstandard filename (maybe changed by a system administrator), preserve the name
• for a freebsd-boot partition, compare its bootcode with the root file system
  • if not coherent, don't change the content of this freebsd-boot partition
• if a detected loader is already up-to-date, neither suggest nor attempt an update

Out of scope

• ESPs that have insufficient space
  • some installations that originated with FreeBSD 12, or earlier, may have this limitation
• ESPs with no file system
  • FreeBSD bug 258987
  • the script attempts to identify this limitation
• disks with two or more ESPs, disks with two or more freebsd-boot partitions
  • if more than one exists on any single disk, the script will work with the first one alone