Re: [patch] raw: don't allow the creation of a raw device with minor number 0

[Bodo Eggert]

Dave Jones <davej@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 12, 2007 at 05:58:41PM -0500, jmoyer@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>  > jengelh>   What:   RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
>  > jengelh>   When:   December 2005
>  > jengelh>   Why:    declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
>  > jengelh>           O_DIRECT can be used instead
>  > jengelh>   Who:    Adrian Bunk <bunk@xxxxxxxxx>
>  > 
>  > It's still present, still used, and so would benefit from being fixed, in
>  > my opinion.

ACK, it's a bug, the patch is there, and AFAIR it's simple and correct. Maybe
it is suitable for the stable branch, too. If the RAW driver isn't removed,
it should be applied.

> Given the tirade against O_DIRECT on linux-kernel earlier this month,
> it has me wondering about the validity of this entry.

O_DIRECT on devices is accepted by Linus, since it has much less corner
cases.

> Every time we've tried to deprecate this driver in Fedora/RHEL, we've
> had enough people complain that we've ended up having to turn it back on.
> (And I'm fairly sure other distros have been in the same position).
> Some vendors seem way too attached to the older semantics than having
> to rewrite their apps to use O_DIRECT, and unnecessarily breaking them
> so that we can throw away a 306 line driver in the name of cleanliness
> seems a bit gratuitous.

It must be hard to add #ifndef O_DIRECT / #define O_DIRECT 0 / #endif
and to add O_DIRECT to the apropiate open calls ...

(I peeked into the driver, and it seems it's just a wrapper creating an alias
 and opening the associated block-device O_DIRECT.)
-- 
We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.
        -- Benjamin Franklin

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