From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: new tool: blktool Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:50:17 -0400 Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <4124E859.5090303@pobox.com> References: <411FD744.2090308@pobox.com> <4120E693.8070700@pobox.com> <4124C135.7050200@rtr.ca> <200408191751.19101.bzolnier@elka.pw.edu.pl> <4124E701.5020905@rtr.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk ([195.92.249.252]:13755 "EHLO www.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266883AbUHSRuc (ORCPT ); Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:50:32 -0400 In-Reply-To: <4124E701.5020905@rtr.ca> List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Mark Lord Cc: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz , Linux Kernel , "linux-ide@vger.kernel.org" Mark Lord wrote: > But there'll need to be some overlap between the old and new, > and currently the libata driver has no way for smartmontools > or hdparm to communicate and control drive features like > the cache/readahead settings, and the various SMART capabilities. Supporting the ATA Pass-through CDB in libata will enable support for all of those things. I think we all agree that there needs to be _some_ way of letting userspace control these attributes via direct ATA command submission. As an aside, although libata _will_ support some sort of user ATA command execution method, some of these attributes are (or will be soon) available through standard SCSI methods. For example, MODE SENSE/MODE SELECT on the caching mode page allows one to toggle read-ahead and writeback caching. blktool supports both methods :) Jeff