From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Greg KH Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] [RFC] genhd: add a new attribute in device structure Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:22:47 -0700 Message-ID: <20110617162247.GA16261@kroah.com> References: <20110616181943.GB1439@kroah.com> <1308256290.2436.143.camel@mulgrave> <1308264321.2436.161.camel@mulgrave> <1308320844.2586.14.camel@mulgrave> <1308322193.2586.30.camel@mulgrave> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Kay Sievers Cc: James Bottomley , Nao Nishijima , linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, jcm@redhat.com, hare@suse.de, stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de, yrl.pp-manager.tt@hitachi.com List-Id: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 06:12:14PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote: > On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 17:39, Kay Sievers wro= te: > > On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 16:49, James Bottomley >=20 > >> So this is subsystem specific. =A0For the case of a SCSI enclosure= , I can > >> answer that it's actually burned into the enclosure firmware. =A0W= hen you > >> build an enclosure with labels, the label names are stored in a > >> diagnostic page. =A0We can actually interrogate the enclosure dire= ctly 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. >=20 > I might need to clarify this a bit. >=20 > 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= =2E > Sure, it might be useful for some use cases. And if that helps to > solve any real problem, we should just do it. >=20 > I just want to make clear, that I don't think that it is anywhere nea= r > 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. >=20 > 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 ar= e > 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= =2E thanks, greg k-h