linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] block: Revert "[SCSI] genhd: add a new attribute "alias" in gendisk"

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Date:	Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:54:21 +0100
From:	Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>
To:	Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>
CC:	"James E.J. Bottomley" <James.Bottomley@...senPartnership.com>,
	Nao Nishijima <nao.nishijima.xt@...achi.com>,
	Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@...y.org>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...e.de>,
	Alan Cox <alan@...ux.intel.com>,
	Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] block: Revert "[SCSI] genhd: add a new attribute "alias"
 in gendisk"

On 2011-11-09 17:25, Tejun Heo wrote:
> This reverts commit a72c5e5eb738033938ab30d6a634b74d1d060f10.
> 
> The commit introduced alias for block devices which is intended to be
> used during logging although actual usage hasn't been committed yet.
> This approach adds very limited benefit (raw log might be easier to
> follow) which can be trivially implemented in userland but has a lot
> of problems.
> 
> It is much worse than netif renames because it doesn't rename the
> actual device but just adds conveninence name which isn't used
> universally or enforced.  Everything internal including device lookup
> and sysfs still uses the internal name and nothing prevents two
> devices from using conflicting alias - ie. sda can have sdb as its
> alias.
> 
> This has been nacked by people working on device driver core, block
> layer and kernel-userland interface and shouldn't have been
> upstreamed.  Revert it.
> 
>  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1155104
>  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.scsi/68632
>  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.scsi/69776

Ack on this, it seems both unneeded, unused, and a bad hack. We need to
revert it before 3.2 rolls out, otherwise we are stuck with it.

-- 
Jens Axboe

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