Re: New model for managing dev_t's for partitionable block devices

Horst von Brand
2003-01-29T16:58:02Z

Steven Dake <sdake@mvista.com> said:
> I was thinking of an entirely new model for partitionable block devices.
> Here is how it would work:
>
> Each physical disk would be assigned a minor number in a group of
> majors. So assume a major was chosen of 150, 151, 152, 153, there would
> be a total of 1024 physical disks that could be mapped. Then the device
> mapper code could be used to provide partition devices in another
> major/group of majors.
>
> The advantage of this technique is that instead of wasting tons of
> minors on partitions that are never used, partitions could be
> dynamically allocated out of the minor list, allowing for thousands of
> disks with varying numbers of partitions each. Further instead of each
> block device (such as i2o, scsi, etc) having their own set of majors for
> each partitionable disk (which wastes dev_t address space) everything
> would be compressed into the same set of majors.

Great idea! Add another partition, and the minors for everything else on
the system change. Not!
--
Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org
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