Re: [PATCH] dynamic addition of virtual disks on PPC64 iSeries

[Stephen Rothwell]

Hi Andrew,

On Sun, 23 May 2004 23:29:20 -0700 Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Stephen Rothwell <sfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > This patch allows us to dynamically add virtual disks to an iSeries
> >  partition. It works like this: after you have created the virtual disk
> >  file on OS/400 and attached it to the Linux partition, you need to read
> >  /sys/bus/vio/drivers/viodasd/probe.  This will do the probe and list any
> >  new disks discovered.
> > 
> >  This was the nicest way I could think of doing this as the interface to
> >  the hypervisor is polled ...
> 
> Is it possible to present all the virtual disks as partitions of a single
> disk, use the "partition table" to query what is present?

The virtual disks are just that: disks.  They present as /dev/iseries/vda
etc and have their own partitions. I can't change that, I will get skinned
by current users.  It was bad enough when I removed the ide emulation hack
... :-)

(Just in case of confusion: the "Linux partition" I referred to above is a
logical partition fo the whole machine.)

> Or to generate a hotplug event when a disk is added?  Even if there's no
> notification to the kernel, it should be possible to generate the hotplug
> events in response to a /proc-based trigger.

I guess that would be possible.  In this case I am trying to do the
minimum change.

> It's a shame you didn't cc linux-kernel on this - the blockdev police would
> have better ideas than I.

I have now sent the patch to LKML and cc'd this reply there as well.

-- 
Cheers,
Stephen Rothwell                    sfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sfr/

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