[coLinux-users] Re: snapshot 20040910 (0.6.2-pre1)

[Ian A. <ia...@ab...>]

On 10/09/2004 21:50, Ian Abbott wrote:
> On 10/09/2004 18:32, Nuno Lucas wrote:
> 
>> Ian Abbott, dando pulos de alegria, escreveu :
>>
>>> I'm just wondering what the reason for this notation change is, 
>>> particularly for aliases.  Sure, the /dev/cobd/X notation helps to 
>>> keep the /dev directory tidy, but /dev/hda/X seems to be going a bit 
>>> too far as /dev/hda is normally a block special file, not a directory!
>>
>> This has to do with devfs naming scheme and Gentoo uses and needs it 
>> to run.
> 
> But when I run Gentoo natively with a 2.6.x kernel with devfs enabled, I 
> get the normal /dev/hda1 etc.

More specifically, "/dev/hda1" ends up as a symlink to 
"ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1".  The devfsd daemon is 
responsible for creating this symlink, using the MKOLDCOMPAT command 
in /etc/devfsd.conf.

I tried using "ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1" as an alias in the 
coLinux xml file, but didn't expect it to work.  I thought the 
"part1" bit would end up as "part/1", but the alias was too long and 
ended up truncated to "ide/host0/bus0/targ".

I still maintain that the /dev/hda/1 naming scheme is purely an 
invention of coLinux (specifically, the cobd_spawn_alias function) 
and nothing to do with any pre-existing devfs naming scheme.

Sure I could create a symlink to /dev/hda1 in /dev/devfsd.conf but 
that kind of defeats the point - I could create a symlink to 
/dev/cobd/0 instead.  The only thing the aliasing buys me is the use 
of standard block major device numbers.