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, 16 May 2001 07:19:05 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 16 May 2001 07:18:46 -0400 Received: from hermine.idb.hist.no ([158.38.50.15]:42508 "HELO hermine.idb.hist.no") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Wed, 16 May 2001 07:18:35 -0400 Message-ID: <3B0261EC.23BE5EF0@idb.hist.no> Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 13:18:04 +0200 From: Helge Hafting X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.5-pre2 i686) X-Accept-Language: no, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Chemolli Francesco (USI)" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: LANANA: To Pending Device Number Registrants In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org "Chemolli Francesco (USI)" wrote: > > > The argument that "if you use numbering based on where in the > > SCSI chain > > the disk is, disks don't pop in and out" is absolute crap. > > It's not true > > even for SCSI any more (there are devices that will aquire > > their location > > dynamically), and it has never been true anywhere else. Give it up. > > We could do something like baptizing disks.. Fix some location > (i.e. the absolutely last sector of the disk or the partition table or > whatever) and store there some 32-bit ID > (could be a random number, a progressive number, whatever). Partition id's seems more interesting than disk id's - we normally mount partitions not whole disks. RAID do this well - the raid autodetect partition stores an ID in the last block, the remaining N-1 blocks are available for a fs. This could be extended to non-raid use - i.e. use the "raid autodetect" partition type for non-raid as well. The autodetect routine could then create /dev/partitions/home, /dev/partitions/usr or /dev/partitions/name_of_my_choice for autodetect partitions not participating in a RAID. This is better than volume labels, as it will work for all fs'es (including those who don't support mount-by-ID) and also raw partitions with no fs. Helge Hafting