Message-ID: <418A36CD.2030600@gmx.net>
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 15:03:57 +0100
From: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.kernel.2004@gmx.net>
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To: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: [RFC] randomized major and minor numbers
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Hi,

IIRC it was debated during 2.5 development to make the kernel
hand out randomized major/minor numbers to better test handling
of dynamic major/minor numbers. Is there a patch available
to test?

Background: I want to make sure that userspace can handle
arbitrary device numbers for disks in my quest for a unified
/dev/diskXpY naming and numbering scheme. This would unify
all the different naming schemes (hd*, sd*, ub*, etc.),
remove arbitrary limits like 15 partitions max on SCSI disks
and achieve most of this in userspace with udev.

In the end, there would be only one block major number >256
with dynamically allocated major numbers for all disks in the
system if LANANA agrees with such a concept. Why would I
want a major >256 registered? Because that way we can make
sure the software accessing these devices can handle a large
dev_t and it doesn't only work by luck.

Comments?

Regards,
Carl-Daniel
-- 
http://www.hailfinger.org/
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