Re: [Qemu-devel] virtio block device and sysfs

[john cooper <john.cooper@redhat.com>]

Marc Haber wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 10:22:14AM -0400, john cooper wrote:
>> Marc Haber wrote:
>>> It the serial "number" can be alphanumeric, that would be great to have.
>> It is simply a string of 20 characters, which AFAICT has
>> its roots in the ATA S/N convention along with many other
>> puzzling present day evils.
> 
> That would be enough for my purposes, but more would be acceptable as
> well.

Internally the s/n string is currently limited to 20 bytes.

>> All that said, I like the alternate choice of adding a
>> special virtio request far better.  It is actually simpler
>> (and more maintainable IMO) than going through the
>> gyrations of stuffing the S/N data through PCI config
>> space.
> 
> Whatever is more easily implemented ;)    How would a Windows
> installation see the label then?

Unknown at this point.  That was part of my earlier motivation
to package up this information as an ATA_IDENTIFY command which
AFAIK is digestible by windows.
 
> Has my wish made its way on the official wishlist and/or roadmap?

I submitted a virtio-based patch a few weeks ago.  I'd been
waiting for a reply from you concerning the /sys support
you'd mentioned.  If that plan has fallen by the wayside
I'll forward a more robust ioctl patch to Rusty so we can
tie this off.

-john

-- 
john.cooper@redhat.com