Re: UUIDs (and devfs and major/minor numbers)

Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
Mon, 21 Jun 1999 11:30:21 +1000


yodaiken@chelm.cs.nmt.edu writes:
> On Sun, Jun 20, 1999 at 08:38:00PM -0400, Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:
> > | So where do you want the authoritative name to come from? The disk? A
> > | database?
> > +--->8
> >
> > devfs uses the hardware address, which works for me...
>
> But that means if you change order of how disks plug into a scsi
> bus, or you move a disk from one to another bus, names
> change. That's ok for you?
>
> Perhaps one problem here is that some folks are also thinking about
> how to handle this additional problem and how devfs will or will not
> interact with any solution.

It doesn't need to interact. If you want volume-based mounting
(something I've said is fine by me), then that works with or without
devfs. I can see how you could use devfsd to provide a nicer interface
than raw UUIDs, but then again there are other ways of doing that to,
I assume. Either way, it doesn't matter, because it's easy to do in
user space.

Devfs still works when you don't have UUIDs, though, which is good
when you're configuring a system, or installing new hardware. And it
also works with location-based mounting, which is legitimate. People
shouldn't be forced to use UUIDs either. Read my other message about
providing choice. Devfs allows people to choose any part of the
configuration spectrum, from a static, disc-based /dev, through a
dynamic /dev and virtual /devices to a virtual /dev.

I don't care how people use it, just that they have the *choice* to
use it how they like.

Regards,

Richard....

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