linux-kernel - Re: What to do about the 2TB limit on HDIO

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Date:	Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:25:15 -0700
From:	Greg KH <gregkh@...e.de>
To:	Mark Lord <lkml@....ca>
Cc:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
	Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@...ox.com>, Tejun Heo <htejun@...il.com>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...l.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	IDE/ATA development list <linux-ide@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-scsi <linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: What to do about the 2TB limit on HDIO_GETGEO ?

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 01:37:03PM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:
> H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> Mark Lord wrote:
>>>
>>> Yeah, that would be just as good, really.  Maybe even better.
>>>
>>> Mark Lord wrote (later on):
>>>> Instead, software has to search everything inside /sys/block/
>>>> looking for a "dev" file whose contents match,
>>>> rather than just trying to access something like this:
>>>>
>>>>   /sys/block/8:1/start
>>>> or
>>>>   /sys/block/majors/8/minors/1/start
>>>>
>>>> Or any one of a number of similar ways to arrange it. 
>>> ..
>> It shouldn't be under /sys/block... there are enough many things that scan 
>> /sys/block and assume any directory underneath it has the current format.
> ..
>
> So long as we only add things, and not remove them, then any software
> that scans /sys/block/ shouldn't care, really.
>
> But yes, it could go elsewhere, too.
> Perhaps a /sys/dev/ directory, populated with symbolic links
> (or hard links?) back to the /sys/block/ entries, something like this:
>
>   /sys/dev/block/8:0 -> ../../../block/sda
>   /sys/dev/block/8:1 -> ../../../block/sda/sda1
>   /sys/dev/block/8:2 -> ../../../block/sda/sda2
>   ...
>
> That's just a suggestion, really.
> And what about character devices?
>
> Perhaps Greg will chime in.

I've been waiting to see if sanity will take hold of anyone here.

Come on people, adding symlinks for device major:minor numbers in sysfs
to save a few 10s of lines of userspace code?  Can things get sillier?

You can add a single udev rule to probably build these in a tree in /dev
if you really need such a thing...

And what's wrong with your new ioctl recomendation?

greg k-h
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