Re: [PATCH] print_dev_t for 2.6.0-test1-mm

Trond Myklebust
2003-07-17T09:56:14Z

>>>>> " " == Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> writes:

> And surely the task of mangling whatever comes off the wire
> into a dev_t for init_special_inode() should be private to the
> Linux NFS client?

Well... Yes, but don't forget that it's not just a client issue but a
server issue too.

The NFSv2 'rdev' field is an unspecified 32-bit integer
format.
For NFSv3, you have a 32-bit major and a 32-bit minor number. Again
the mapping is unspecified by the protocol.

It all works by assuming that the client and server have agreed to use
the same format/conventions.

So if we want to retain backward compatibility with existing 2.4.x NFS
(and particularly NFSroot) clients/servers, then we want to ensure
that all numbers that are sent over the wire stay the same.

Cheers,
Trond