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To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
cc: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.tfs.com>,
        James Graham <greywolf@siva.captech.com>,
        "Kevin P. Neal" <kpneal@pobox.com>, hackers@freebsd.org,
        tech-kern@netbsd.org
Subject: Re: VPS mailing list, BSD interest? 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 01 Oct 1996 11:06:17 PDT."
             <199610011806.LAA02439@lestat.nas.nasa.gov> 
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 13:12:51 -0700
From: "Justin T. Gibbs" <gibbs@freefall.freebsd.org>
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>Just where do you propose to keep this information?
>
>(Hint: it's going to be machine-dependent.)

VxFS runs on many different different platforms and uses this approach, but
I would expect a per OS not per machine type solution.  I haven't given it
a tremendous amount of thought, but I assumed that it would be part of the
BSD disklabel.

>When you say "open the partition", which partition are you opening?
>
>(Hint: if you're opening /dev/sd0a, then you have to put all kinds of
>crap to find the "ccd block" in the SCSI disk driver, and the IDE disk
>driver, and the Xylogics disk drivers, and...)

Don't these drivers already have to know how to find the BSD disklabel?

>How does the way the ccd is configured not allow you to move your
>disks around (to different controllers, etc.)?
>
>(Hint: it doesn't.)

Last time I looked at CCD, it did.  What I mean by moving my disks around
is handling situations like, "Gee, I'm not getting enough bandwidth using
only one controller here.  I think I'll buy a second one and split up my
disks."  After turning off the machine, sticking in the new controller and
messing with some cables, I should be able to simply power on the system
and have everything work transparently.

>Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
>NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
>NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
>Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939

--
Justin T. Gibbs
===========================================
  FreeBSD: Turning PCs into workstations
===========================================