From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:17:29 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:17:19 -0400 Received: from h24-64-71-161.cg.shawcable.net ([24.64.71.161]:59899 "EHLO webber.adilger.int") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:17:04 -0400 From: Andreas Dilger Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:16:43 -0600 To: Alan Cox Cc: Mark Swanson , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Request: removal of fs/fs.h/super_block.u to enable partition Message-ID: <20010919171643.T14526@turbolinux.com> Mail-Followup-To: Alan Cox , Mark Swanson , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <3BA8F6EC.E3D73C87@yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.20i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sep 19, 2001 22:52 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > Apart from the fact that the interface is source level you already can > distribute, compile and merge file systems without patching the kernel. > > It seems to be a user space issue not a kernel one. Your app can amend > /etc/mtab when it creates and shuts down. Well, in recent versions of e2fsprogs it prefers to check /proc/mounts over /etc/mtab to determine if a device is in-use, because the latter can be incorrect after a crash, and the root filesystem is read-only at this time. There was recently a bug report about this from Slackware users, where fsck is run on all of the filesystems before root is remounted rw. As a result, there is now even extra checking to see if the devno of the mountpoint == devno of the device, otherwise it assumes the /etc/mtab entry is bogus. On most other systems, root is remounted rw before non-root filesystems are checked, and /etc/mtab could be assumed to be correct, but it will never be checked if /proc/mounts exists. Cheers, Andreas -- Andreas Dilger \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto, \ would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?" http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/ -- Dogbert