Re: [PATCH v4 12/16] libnvdimm, nfit: enable support for volatile ranges

[Dan Williams]

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 3:12 PM, Linda Knippers <linda.knippers@xxxxxxx> wrote:
[..]
>> The /dev/pmem
>> device name just tells you that your block device is hosted by a
>> driver that knows how to handle persistent memory constraints, but any
>> other details about the nature of the address range need to come from
>> other sources of information, and potentially information sources that
>> the kernel does not know about.
>
>
> I'm asking about the other source of information in this specific case
> where we're exposing pmem devices that will never ever be persistent.
> Before we add these devices, I think we should be able to tell the user
> how they can know the properties of the underlying device.

The only way I can think to indicate this is with a platform + device
whitelist in a tool like ndctl. Where the tool says "yes, these
xyz-vendor DIMMs on this abc-vendor platform with this 123-version
BIOS" is a known good persistent configuration.