Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S964915AbWJ1Xem (ORCPT ); Sat, 28 Oct 2006 19:34:42 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S964921AbWJ1Xem (ORCPT ); Sat, 28 Oct 2006 19:34:42 -0400 Received: from outpipe-village-512-1.bc.nu ([81.2.110.250]:49820 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S964915AbWJ1Xel (ORCPT ); Sat, 28 Oct 2006 19:34:41 -0400 Subject: Re: [patch] drivers: wait for threaded probes between initcall levels From: Alan Cox To: Stefan Richter Cc: Grant Grundler , Andrew Morton , Pavel Machek , Greg KH , Stephen Hemminger , Matthew Wilcox , Adrian Bunk , Linus Torvalds , Linux Kernel Mailing List , linux-pci@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz In-Reply-To: <4543C22A.2060203@s5r6.in-berlin.de> References: <20061026191131.003f141d@localhost.localdomain> <20061027170748.GA9020@kroah.com> <20061027172219.GC30416@elf.ucw.cz> <20061027113908.4a82c28a.akpm@osdl.org> <20061027114144.f8a5addc.akpm@osdl.org> <20061027114237.d577c153.akpm@osdl.org> <1161989970.16839.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20061027160626.8ac4a910.akpm@osdl.org> <20061028050905.GB5560@colo.lackof.org> <20061027221925.1041cc5e.akpm@osdl.org> <20061028060833.GC5560@colo.lackof.org> <4543C22A.2060203@s5r6.in-berlin.de> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 00:34:57 +0100 Message-Id: <1162078498.29146.11.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.6.2 (2.6.2-1.fc5.5) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1157 Lines: 25 Ar Sad, 2006-10-28 am 22:48 +0200, ysgrifennodd Stefan Richter: > I hear network interfaces can be selected by their MACs, which are > globally unique and persistent. Most SCSI hardware has globally unique > and persistent unit properties too, and udev indeed uses them these days. You hear incorrectly. The MAC address is only required to be *machine unique*, please see the 802.1/2 specification documents for more detail. Distinguishing by card MAC is a hack that works on some systems only. SCSI is also unreliable for serial numbers because of USB, brain-dead raid controllers and other devices that fake the same ident for many devices. There is another ugly too - many driver/library layers "know" that during boot the code is not re-entered so has no locking. Before you can go multi-probe you also have to fix all the locking in the drivers that have boot time specific functionality (eg IDE). Alan - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/