thoughts on mdadm and dev node creation

[martin f krafft]

Neil,

Have you considered removing all knowledge of device major/minor
numbers from mdadm userspace?

I imagine a solution where mdadm simply tells the kernel (via sysfs)
to assemble device md1 from e.g. /dev/sd[abc]1, and the kernel then
notifies udev to create the device (or, if udev is not used, just
makes sure that the existing /dev/md1 then refers to the newly
created array?

This sort of interface would be much better IMHO, because

  (a) udev is becoming the standard
  (b) udev should thus create /dev nodes, and nothing else
  (c) mdadm via ioctl() requires a /dev node to assemble the array,
      but udev only gets to find out about the array after it's
      assembled, at which point the device node already exists. So
      it's sort of a catch-22 situation.

Do you have any thoughts on the matter? Please keep the mailing list
on Cc.

Btw: can I get you to subscribe to
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-mdadm-devel
so we could just have all discussions there?

-- 
martin;              (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
  \____ echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:" net at madduck
 
spamtraps: madduck.bogus at madduck.net
 
"if confronted with a choice between all the truth in god's right hand
 and the ever live struggle for truth, coupled with eternal error, in
 god's left, i would choose the left."
                                                   -- gotthold lessing
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature (GPG/PGP)
Url : http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-mdadm-devel/attachments/20060814/d01a93ef/attachment.pgp