Re: [PATCH 1/3] [RFC] genhd: add a new attribute in device structure

[Nao Nishijima <nao.nishijima.xt@hitachi.com>]

(2011/06/19 4:55), Kay Sievers wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 21:40, James Bottomley
> <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 2011-06-17 at 09:22 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 06:12:14PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 17:39, Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org> wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 16:49, James Bottomley
>>>>
>>>>>> So this is subsystem specific.  For the case of a SCSI enclosure, I can
>>>>>> answer that it's actually burned into the enclosure firmware.  When you
>>>>>> build an enclosure with labels, the label names are stored in a
>>>>>> diagnostic page.  We can actually interrogate the enclosure directly or
>>>>>> use the ses driver to get these names mapped to current devices.
>>>>>
>>>>> To me this sounds like a nice name on top of the current bunch of
>>>>> names, not like a 'preferred' name.
>>>>>
>>>>> I still don't like to introduce any new facility to the kernel that
>>>>> can handle only one single name. Reality the last years has taught us
>>>>> a very different story, and we've walked a long way to get where we
>>>>> are. I really don't believe single names will ever work, it's just a
>>>>> nice theory.
>>>>
>>>> I might need to clarify this a bit.
>>>>
>>>> I have no problem in general to add a 'alias' to every disk, and use
>>>> that when stuff is logged. Just the same way the netifs have an alias.
>>>> Sure, it might be useful for some use cases. And if that helps to
>>>> solve any real problem, we should just do it.
>>>>
>>>> I just want to make clear, that I don't think that it is anywhere near
>>>> to a solution for the problems which are described here. And that
>>>> nobody should see this as an excuse not to get their stuff together
>>>> and work on the problem, which is that we don't have machine-readable
>>>> error and debug from the kernel and a smart syslog.
>>>>
>>>> If we had that, I'm very sure nobody would even ask for a 'pretty
>>>> name' in the kernel, and I think that is a good indication that we are
>>>> not on the right track here.
>>>
>>> And I totally agree here, which is why I don't want to accept this
>>> change to the driver core to add this, as it's not the correct solution.
>>
>> OK, fine ... we'll do it as gendisk only then.  I suppose that is the
>> 95% use case anyway.
> 
> Sounds fine. It's probably easier to have it domain-specific anyway.
> Just like the netif alias already is.
> 

Agreed. Our purpose is to output disk's alias name in kernel messages.

> I would suggest not to call it 'preferred' though, but something
> similar to 'alias'. Having /dev/disk/by-preferred/ doesn't sound too
> convincing to me.
> 

OK, I will change 'preferred name' to 'alias name'.

> An 'change' uevent when the alias is set sounds fine. I don't think a
> set-once policy is needed.
> 

I will intent to implement as follows
- Change the name from preferred to alias
- Add alias_name in gendisk
- Notify 'change' uevent when the alias is set

Thanks,

-- 
Nao NISHIJIMA
Software Platform Research Dept. Linux Technology Center
Hitachi, Ltd., YOKOHAMA Research  Laboratory
Email： nao.nishijima.xt@hitachi.com
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