From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Tue, 15 May 2001 20:25:48 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Tue, 15 May 2001 20:25:38 -0400 Received: from geos.coastside.net ([207.213.212.4]:57016 "EHLO geos.coastside.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Tue, 15 May 2001 20:25:23 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <048801c0dd97$aa67bf60$6800000a@brownell.org> In-Reply-To: <200105152317.f4FNHsY3022099@webber.adilger.int> <048801c0dd97$aa67bf60$6800000a@brownell.org> Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 16:55:08 -0700 To: David Brownell , Andreas Dilger From: Jonathan Lundell Subject: Re: LANANA: To Pending Device Number Registrants Cc: Linus Torvalds , lkml Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org At 4:35 PM -0700 2001-05-15, David Brownell wrote: >[ Re why "physical" device IDs _should_ have a critical role in sysadmin ] > >> I would have to agree that "stable" is critical to not driving people >> crazy. In the case of AIX, once a device is enumerated, it will retain >> the same name across reboots. Enough information is kept about each >> device to determine if it has already been enumerated (i.e. same I/O >> port address for serial devices, MAC address for ethernet cards, etc), >> or if it is a new device and should get a new name. > >I caught those refs to how AIX does this ... sounds worth learning from. >Does it handle USB "port addresses" (which bus and hub)? Solaris has a scheme that addresses the issue at well. Device nodes live in /devices (/dev has soft links into /devices) and have system-global-geographic names. In Solaris talk, the 0-1-2 of eth0-1-2 i an instance. There's a file /etc/pathtoinst that records the connection of an device instance to its /devices geographical name. It does keep naming stable, but can be a PITA at times when you're reconfiguring a system and *want* to renumber things. (There are magic ways to do it, though). That's all Solaris 2.6; not sure about 2.8. -- /Jonathan Lundell.