Date: Mon, 1 May 95 11:55:24 MDT From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) To: dufault@hda.com (Peter Dufault) Cc: bde@zeta.org.au, hackers@FreeBSD.org, julian@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: SLICES and bits in the device numbers Message-ID: <9505011755.AA11695@cs.weber.edu> In-Reply-To: <199505011049.GAA20745@hda.com> from "Peter Dufault" at May 1, 95 06:49:44 am
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> Even if I remove the fixed SCSI device (BUS-ID-LUN embedded in > major number) that can no longer work for disks, I still need a > control device for the disk that bypasses all normal processing > and only permits the ioctl (for formatting disks and fixing broken > tapes). It appears that for a disk drive, the only field that > belongs to the driver is the UNIT field. I don't understand the tapes issue -- I would think tapes would be unaffected by the slice code. As far as formatting disks go, I agree with you. Personally, if I were using the devfs, it would be via a heirarchy that includes slices last and thus you could open the intermediate "directory" file and work on it. Alternately, the operations you want to do are only applicable to whole devices, which implies that there is no confusion of you just want to make them work without recourse on slice devices as well. The only issue there is how do you open a slice device on a disk with no disklabel because it needs formatting. The O_NONBLOCK seems an elegant soloution to the problem, saying "ignore the slice bits on this open". My two cents. Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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