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Date:   Thu, 25 Jul 2019 19:40:32 +0200
From:   Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To:     Logan Gunthorpe <logang@deltatee.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-nvme@lists.infradead.org,
        linux-block@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>,
        Sagi Grimberg <sagi@grimberg.me>,
        Keith Busch <kbusch@kernel.org>, Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>,
        Chaitanya Kulkarni <Chaitanya.Kulkarni@wdc.com>,
        Max Gurtovoy <maxg@mellanox.com>,
        Stephen Bates <sbates@raithlin.com>,
        Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v6 02/16] chardev: introduce cdev_get_by_path()
Message-ID: <20190725174032.GA27818@kroah.com>
References: <20190725172335.6825-1-logang@deltatee.com>
 <20190725172335.6825-3-logang@deltatee.com>
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On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 11:23:21AM -0600, Logan Gunthorpe wrote:
> cdev_get_by_path() attempts to retrieve a struct cdev from
> a path name. It is analagous to blkdev_get_by_path().
> 
> This will be necessary to create a nvme_ctrl_get_by_path()to
> support NVMe-OF passthru.

Ick, why?  Why would a cdev have a "pathname"?

What is "NVMe-OF passthru"?  Why does a char device node have anything
to do with NVMe?

We have way too many ways to abuse cdevs today, my long-term-wish has
always been to clean this interface up to make it more sane and unified,
and get rid of the "outliers" (all created at the time for a good
reason, that's not the problem.)  But to add "just one more" seems
really odd to me.

thanks,

greg k-h