RE: [RFC PATCH 35/35] Add Xen virtual block device driver.

[Ian Pratt]

> This is another thing that has always put me off.  The 
> virtual block device driver has the ability to masquerade as 
> other types of block devices.  It actually claims to be an 
> IDE or SCSI device allocating the appropriate major/minor numbers.
> 
> This seems to be pretty evil and creating interesting failure 
> conditions for users who load IDE or SCSI modules.  I've seen 
> it trip up a number of people in the past.  I think we should 
> only ever use the major number that was actually allocated to us.

We certainly should be pushing everyone toward using the 'xdX' etc
devices that are allocated to us. However, the installers of certain
older distros and other user space tools won't except anything other
than hdX/sdX, so its useful from a compatibility POV even if it never
goes into mainline, which I agree it probably shouldn't. 

Ian
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