Re: [uml-devel] Partitioning scheme for ubd's

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>]

On Sat, Nov 01, 2003 at 11:59:11AM +0100, BlaisorBlade wrote:

> But there is a problem here:
> 1) device names are not consistent: if you want to use ubd[a-z], decide so
> and start the change(for 2.6 there's a lot more changes anyway, so it is a
> good occasion...)

Are you talking about /proc/partitions or something else?

> 2) if I do an install, I can partition the ubd's; but then, I won't be
> able to loop mount the file on the host(and if I'm in trouble, this
> ability is worth a lot). In fact, I've never partitioned the ubd's, but
> this meant a lot of trouble even to run Slackware install.

Of course you can; use losetup -o (or mount -o loop,offset=).  But I don't
see what this has to do with partition support for ubd.  You can use
partitions or not, depending on what you prefer, just as with a real block
device.

> 3) so, I thought this: since partitioning schemes are pluggable, it would be 
> possible to fool it and turn the ubd's into partitions of a single disk. I.e. 
> if I setup udb0, ubd1 and so on, they would be seen as three partitions of a 
> single disk. But they are still different files, loop-mountable on host.
> 
> Would you ever accept this? The other possible solution(which would be 
> cleaner) would be to teach, if possible, to the host kernel Device Manager to 
> read a file as a bunch of partition with its table(I've heard of DM about COW 
> files these days), and then to mount the partitions, but I don't know if it's 
> possible.

I can't think of any instance where I'd want this mixed solution, instead of
the existing options with partitions and multiple ubd devices.

-- 
 - mdz


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