[syslinux] [5.10] PXE + dhcp opts 209, 210 and path issues in tftp/http

Gene Cumm gene.cumm at gmail.com
Sun Jun 9 06:18:42 PDT 2013


On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Matt Fleming <matt at console-pimps.org> wrote:
> I'm not quite sure what the proper solution is. Clearly using ':' to
> separate entries was a terrible idea, but presumably some people are
> using that syntax now and it would cause issues if we changed it - the
> PATH directive has been supported since 5.00.

On Sat, Jun 8, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com> wrote:
> To minimize impact and convey the extent of the change, perhaps change to
> ';' immediately and make another release, probably 5.20 and this week.

CP/M, DOS, and Windows use the ';' standard while *nixes like Linux
use ':'.  In my opinion, to deviate from these requires strong
justification that neither is acceptable and that a candidate
character is unlikely to be used for other purposes (like the
quote/tick characters ['"`]) AND either is not valid for a filename or
is significantly improbable to encounter.


On Sat, Jun 8, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Ady <ady-sf at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I would hope that using ";" as path separator in the PATH directive
> would not be a problem for ISO9660 fs and ISOLINUX, where the ";" is
> used in the standard specification to indicate the 'Version Number'
> of files (";1"). In practice, this Version Number is not always used,
> yet it is still part of the standard.
>
> Additionally, ";" is still a valid character for directory names in
> several fs.

The important part for these two is "Will any Syslinux variant ever
use ';' in a filename?".  If ISOLINUX abstracts the ';' away such that
they are not valid for a filename, disallowing access to all but the
latest version of a filename (which I think is the case), this point
is almost moot.  If SYSLINUX also abstracts ';' to not be valid
already, this may be moot.

> My apologies if this is not at all a concern and thus not relevant.
> I'd rather just mention it now in case it happens to be relevant,
> than to see a new potential conflict with a new possible
> path-separator.

I think this is the kind of thinking needed, questioning the impacts
of the path separator choice.


On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 2:52 AM, Schlomo Schapiro <schlomo at schapiro.org> wrote:
> Maybe | (pipe symbol) would make a good separator?

With no known use (to my knowledge), I'd say this choice needs
justification that both ':' and ';' can not be used along with
examining the usability of '|' as a valid filename character in 4.06
and 5.10.

--
-Gene


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