Re: [Dump-devel] Linux device number bug report

[Stelian P. <st...@po...>]

On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 04:55:49PM +0800, Zhang Jun wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I have some questions about device number extension.
> 
> In Linux kernel 2.6, device number will be extended from 16-bit to 32-bit. All utilities and libraries should make corresponding extension for this new feature in kernel 2.6. 
> 
> I find that "dump-0.4b34-1" uses two struct members "di_rdev" and "st_rdev" which represent device number, and they are operated as 16-bit.
[...]

Hi Zhang,

I saw your repeated mails on this matter but I haven't answered
yet because I'm not sure what to say.

From what I understand (and see at the bottom of include/linux/kdev_t.h in
the 2.6 kernel sources), today the internal kdev_t is indeed coded into
32 bits, but the external, userspace visible one is still coded in the
lower 16 bits of a 32 bit integer.

So for dump there should be no change in the immediate future.

The kernel developers will have first to make the new kdev_t visible
to userspace (with a new stat syscall or by making an incompatible
change in the existing one) before we start to worry about this.

Stelian.

-- 
Stelian Pop <st...@po...>