Subject: Re: tools support for non-512 byte sector sizes
From: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>
To: Matthew Wilcox <matthew@wil.cx>
Cc: Ric Wheeler <rwheeler@redhat.com>, linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org,
       linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Martin Petersen <mkp@mkp.net>,
       Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>, Matt Domsch <Matt_Domsch@Dell.com>
In-Reply-To: <20080729185002.GD24924@parisc-linux.org>
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Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:00:19 -0500
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On Tue, 2008-07-29 at 12:50 -0600, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 01:44:38PM -0500, James Bottomley wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-07-29 at 12:42 -0600, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 01:37:25PM -0500, James Bottomley wrote:
> > > > scsi_debug does exactly the same thing, so it reports anything you tell
> > > > it (Martin Petersen actually added this so he could test with 4k
> > > > sectors).
> > > > 
> > > > The problem, which ata_ram also suffers, is that the tools we most need
> > > > to test are the ones for manipulating non volatile characteristics (like
> > > > partition tables).  We'd really like the disk contents to survive reboot
> > > > for this ...
> > > 
> > > Ummm... _reboot_, or _module unload/reload_?  I could certainly include
> > > an option to populate the ramdisc from a file.  Is the ioctl to re-read
> > > the partition table not enough?
> > 
> > reboot ... we'd like to take the tools through shutdown restart testing
> > to make sure they're all working ... of course, then there's the
> > bios ...
> 
> It's not up to us to fix the BIOS.
> 
> Since the vast majority of users use a distro, and the vast majority of
> distros use a fully modular kernel, wouldn't initialising the contents
> of ata-ram from the initrd/initramfs solve the problem?

Well ... we'd really like it file backed to truly verify ... sort of
like scsi_debug on a loopback.  But saving on shutdown and
reinitialising from the saved image on boot would likely be perfect.

James


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