Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:22:47 -0700
From: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
To: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>
Cc: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com>,
        Nao Nishijima <nao.nishijima.xt@hitachi.com>,
        linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        jcm@redhat.com, hare@suse.de, stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de,
        yrl.pp-manager.tt@hitachi.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] [RFC] genhd: add a new attribute in device structure
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On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 06:12:14PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 17:39, Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org> wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 16:49, James Bottomley
> 
> >> So this is subsystem specific. ?For the case of a SCSI enclosure, I can
> >> answer that it's actually burned into the enclosure firmware. ?When you
> >> build an enclosure with labels, the label names are stored in a
> >> diagnostic page. ?We can actually interrogate the enclosure directly or
> >> use the ses driver to get these names mapped to current devices.
> >
> > To me this sounds like a nice name on top of the current bunch of
> > names, not like a 'preferred' name.
> >
> > I still don't like to introduce any new facility to the kernel that
> > can handle only one single name. Reality the last years has taught us
> > a very different story, and we've walked a long way to get where we
> > are. I really don't believe single names will ever work, it's just a
> > nice theory.
> 
> I might need to clarify this a bit.
> 
> I have no problem in general to add a 'alias' to every disk, and use
> that when stuff is logged. Just the same way the netifs have an alias.
> Sure, it might be useful for some use cases. And if that helps to
> solve any real problem, we should just do it.
> 
> I just want to make clear, that I don't think that it is anywhere near
> to a solution for the problems which are described here. And that
> nobody should see this as an excuse not to get their stuff together
> and work on the problem, which is that we don't have machine-readable
> error and debug from the kernel and a smart syslog.
> 
> If we had that, I'm very sure nobody would even ask for a 'pretty
> name' in the kernel, and I think that is a good indication that we are
> not on the right track here.

And I totally agree here, which is why I don't want to accept this
change to the driver core to add this, as it's not the correct solution.

thanks,

greg k-h
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