On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 8:12 AM Russell Adams <russell.ad...@adamssystems.nl>
wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 04:03:18PM +0200, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > > > Question: is there any concept to get some proper version information
> > > > into these binaries, from which then some identity and the commit tag
> > > > could be retrieved from which they were created?
> > >
> > > Maybe:
> > >
> > > # strings /boot/loader.efi | fgrep Revision
> > > DFreeBSD/amd64 EFI loader, Revision 3.0
> >
> > I tried this:
> >
> > strings loader.efi | fgrep Revision
> > 11.1:
> > FreeBSD/amd64 EFI loader, Revision 1.1
> > 12.2:
> > FreeBSD/amd64 EFI loader, Revision 1.1
> > 13.2:
> > FreeBSD/amd64 EFI loader, Revision 1.1
> > 14.x/15.x:
> > FreeBSD/amd64 EFI loader, Revision 3.0
> >
> > but the size of the file was different in all 1.1 cases.
> > So I'm not sure it really defines the exact version.
> >
> > --
> > p...@freebsd.org +49 171 3101372 Now what ?
> >
>
> This was exactly my experience in the forum post. Multiple versions
> had the same "Revision" tag, and there is no way to crossreference
> with a specific Freebsd version.
We used to encode the date the loader was built. Reproducible builds
stopped that.
The Revision tag really is what boot protocol is supported. That protocol
changes very rarely.
It's not been a goal to communicate the version, and generally, there's no
good way to know. You can tell loader.efi vs boot1.efi, that's about it.
commit a97b71605af6c68c785b02f573ed880d87635d04
Author: Ed Maste <ema...@freebsd.org>
Date: Mon Dec 19 14:45:59 2016 +0000
Build loaders reproducibly when WITH_REPRODUCIBLE_BUILD
When WITH_REPRODUCIBLE_BUILD=yes is set in src.conf(5), eliminate the
time, user, and host from the loader's version information. This allows
builds to produce bit-for-bit identical output.
If you build WITHOUT_REPRODUCIBLE_BUILD, you'd get version info.
Warner
