Re: Check for device type (block/character) in grub-setup?

["Grégoire Sutre" <gregoire.sutre@labri.fr>]

Robert Millan wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 03:54:49AM +0100, Grégoire Sutre wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm wondering why there is no check for device type (block/character) in  
>> grub-setup.c whereas the function probe() in grub-probe.c exits with  
>> error if the device is not of the expected type. Shouldn't there be a  
>> similar check in grub-setup?
> 
> Yes.
> 
>> I guess that a similar  
>> behavior could be observed on FreeBSD, but I can't actually test this.
> 
> Please make the code generic if possible (i.e. accept both character and
> block devices).

I don't understand what you mean here.  I assumed that it's better to 
use character devices when accessing disks in GRUB utils, isn't it so? 
Moreover, at least on NetBSD, when a block device is mounted, it cannot 
be opened (device busy), and this would be a problem with grub-probe.

However, from a user view-point, it could be nice on NetBSD to accept 
stripped device names (e.g. only `wd0d' or even `wd0') and automatically 
get the associated device file (with opendisk(3)). This is what system 
tools do, e.g. `disklabel wd0' or `fdisk wd0' actually opens 
`/dev/rwd0d' (on i386).

Grégoire