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Re: Check for device type (block/character) in grub-setup?
From: |
Robert Millan |
Subject: |
Re: Check for device type (block/character) in grub-setup? |
Date: |
Thu, 7 Jan 2010 20:35:01 +0100 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) |
On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 06:31:02PM +0100, Grégoire Sutre wrote:
> Robert Millan wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 03:54:49AM +0100, Grégoire Sutre wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm wondering why there is no check for device type (block/character)
>>> in grub-setup.c whereas the function probe() in grub-probe.c exits
>>> with error if the device is not of the expected type. Shouldn't
>>> there be a similar check in grub-setup?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>> I guess that a similar behavior could be observed on FreeBSD, but I
>>> can't actually test this.
>>
>> Please make the code generic if possible (i.e. accept both character and
>> block devices).
>
> I don't understand what you mean here. I assumed that it's better to
> use character devices when accessing disks in GRUB utils, isn't it so?
> Moreover, at least on NetBSD, when a block device is mounted, it cannot
> be opened (device busy), and this would be a problem with grub-probe.
I don't think it matters to us whether a device is character or block
based, other than to perform sanity checks in it. Tools like grub-setup
are supposed to be happy with either.
(I find it a bit odd that disks are represented by NetBSD as character
devices, but, whatever...)
> However, from a user view-point, it could be nice on NetBSD to accept
> stripped device names (e.g. only `wd0d' or even `wd0') and automatically
> get the associated device file (with opendisk(3)). This is what system
> tools do, e.g. `disklabel wd0' or `fdisk wd0' actually opens
> `/dev/rwd0d' (on i386).
I find this a bit confusing TBH. It seems unpredictable and would make
GRUB inconsistent across platforms.
BUT
I think it's fine if you patch this up in the NetBSD version of GRUB,
if you want it to be consistent with the other utilities.
--
Robert Millan
"Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi