sysgen Reference

Name

sysgen -- make new EROS volume

Synopsis

sysgen volume image_file

Description

The sysgen utility maps the content of the EROS image file image_file (from mkimage) onto the specified EROS volume. Pages in the EROS image file are written to divisions in the volume sequentially, followed by Nodes. Any capabilities within the image file are relocated to reflect the final locations of these objects on the actual volume before being written.

The principle reason for distinguising between image and volume files is flexibility -- the image file captures the logical relationships between pages and nodes, while the volume file captures the representation of these objects on some particular physical medium. Separating the two files eliminates the need to store images of zero pages, and also allows the choice of volume to be made long after the system image has been constructed.

One way to think of the sysgen utility is as a relocating loader for EROS images.