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Date:      Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:17:04 -0600
From:      Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
To:        Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        src-committers@FreeBSD.org, Andrey Chernov <ache@FreeBSD.org>, Daniel O'Connor <doconnor@gsoft.com.au>, Alexander Motin <mav@FreeBSD.org>, svn-src-head@FreeBSD.org, svn-src-all@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r220983 - head
Message-ID:  <F39ED077-FFCA-451C-BED7-9C6EA0C16078@bsdimp.com>
In-Reply-To: <4DB786C3.3010607@freebsd.org>
References:  <201104240923.p3O9N8QG025386@svn.freebsd.org> <20110424161933.GA18775@vniz.net> <18B3AE1E-467E-4B23-81B9-AB1EDEFE1F7A@gsoft.com.au> <E5C45DAC-6014-42E2-9E1C-BFB7D54EBCB4@bsdimp.com> <34A34338-79E0-435E-9BF1-614D10FC9FC7@gsoft.com.au> <E5C7935B-A333-4818-986C-4FD19DD73381@bsdimp.com> <15C958E3-6CF7-48C4-88C9-2E61AC301657@gsoft.com.au> <4DB786C3.3010607@freebsd.org>

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On Apr 26, 2011, at 9:00 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:

> On 04/26/11 18:48, Daniel O'Connor wrote:
>>=20
>> On 26/04/2011, at 1:31, Warner Losh wrote:
>>>> This is why I prefer IDs since they are nominally unique (UFS
>>>> ones, GPTs damn well better be :)
>>>>=20
>>>> Although I concede it is rather annoying to work out which is
>>>> which, or type them out manually..
>>>=20
>>> For things like ZFS, UUIDs aren't so bad because it hides them.
>>=20
>> Yes, I use GPT with ZFS, it's good :)
>>=20
>>> For things like /etc/fstab, I prefer the named approach.  This
>>> allows me to survive a newfs on a partition if I have to without
>>> having to hack my /etc/fstab.  I have a large /tmp partition at
>>> times, and it gets newfs'd if there's a bad problem...
>>=20
>> Yeah, but.. IMHO if the installer supports it then it is dramatically
>> less painful..
>>=20
>> I haven't looked to see how hard it is to add, hopefully I will get
>> some time to look RSN and it shouldn't be too difficult.
>=20
> It's not difficult to add -- the issue is that the mechanism is =
unreliable. It doesn't work for all partition types supporting labels, =
it's hard to figure out what the name of the label provider is in a =
generic way, and the label providers have a nasty habit of disappearing =
periodically when you use the underlying provider for anything. Also, =
retastes don't always work. For example, if I change the label of a GPT =
partition, the label provider does not reflect the change until a disk =
reattach (e.g. a reboot).

I know that for ufs, it works well, except for the root partition which =
requires some dancing to retrofit.  But if you relabel a partition, it =
shows up right away in /dev/ufs/newlbl.  Guess not all of them are that =
reliable.

The new names, and slightly non-deterministic probe order make it more =
important that we shake out the bugs from this as best we can.  I think =
that names/uuid are critical to the future, and we need to fix any =
remaining issues.

> If it's a feature that we enable by default, and that the installer =
relies upon, it has to work better than that.


Thanks for the report.  Who are you working with to resolve these =
issues?  Some of them surprise me, but you speak of them as if they are =
widely known...  Without owners, these issues will languish.

Warner=



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