Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] Persistent device name using alias name

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 07:59:26PM +0900, Nao Nishijima wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> This patch series provide an "alias name" of the disk into kernel messages.
> Users can assign a preferred name to an alias name of the device.
> 
> A raw device name of a disk does not always point a same disk at each boot-up
> time. Therefore, users have to use persistent device names, which udev creates
> to always access the same disk. However, kernel messages still display the raw
> device names.
> 
> My proposal is that users can use and see persistent device names which were
> assigned by they because users expect same name to point same disk anytime.
> 
> Why need to modify kernel messages?
> - We can see mapping of device names and persistent device names in udev log.
>   If those logs output to syslog, we can search persistent device name from
>   device name, but it can cause a large amount of syslog output.
> 
> - If we can use the persistent device names and can always see the same name on
>   the kernel log, we don't need to pay additional cost for searching and picking
>   a correct pair of device name and persistent device name from udev log.
> 
> - Kernel messages are output to serial console when kenel crashes,
>   it's so hard to convert device name to alias name.
> 
> 
> Of course, I am going to modify the commands using device name so that users
> can use alias names.

Please do that first, and then you will not need any kernel changes in
the first place :)

Anyway, you all know my objections to this patch series, but again, as
I'm not the block subsystem maintainer, I really can't do anything.

greg k-h