Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Greg KH <gregkh@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Stability of /sys api
Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 01:24:48
Message-Id: 20120515012336.GB18105@kroah.com
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] Stability of /sys api by Walter Dnes
1 On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 03:53:53AM -0400, Walter Dnes wrote:
2 > After some Google-searching, I think I've figured out how to implement
3 > automounting under mdev. I'd like to put in as much sanity-checking
4 > into the script as possible. Right now I have 1 USB stick plugged in as
5 > /dev/sdb. Th hard drive is /dev/sda. The "removable" data is readable
6 > like so...
7 >
8 > cat /sys/block/sda/removable
9 > 0
10 >
11 > cat /sys/block/sdb/removable
12 > 1
13 >
14 > My question... is this API stable or deprecated? I.e. can I count on
15 > it being around for a while? I figure this question is a developer type
16 > question rather than ordinary user type.
17
18 You might want to look at Documentation/ABI/ in the kernel source tree
19 if you are curious about sysfs files like this.
20
21 As you have figured out, this really doesn't mean what you think it
22 does. In fact, there's no way to determine what I think you are asking
23 for, which is "can this disk go away", as really, any disk can go away
24 at any point in time, just like any disk can show up at any point in
25 time as well. Think PCI hotplug systems, thunderbolt, pcmcia,
26 ExpressCard, Firewire, USB, SCSI, etc.
27
28 So you need to implement stuff such that you are not dependant on the
29 bus type. If you see a new disk, act on it, it's that simple.
30
31 But note, please do not be automounting disks from uevents directly. As
32 someone else said on this thread, "those that have not learned from the
33 lessons of udev, will implement it poorly". We learned that this is not
34 a good idea at all, and should be left to userspace helper applications
35 that listen for dbus messages. Both GNOME and KDE work this way quite
36 well, so I would be very wary of reimplementing the wheel.
37
38 Actually with all the hype about mdev these days, why not just use a 3
39 year old version of udev (or maybe 4), that is probably what mdev is at
40 as far as functionality goes. Why not just fork udev from then and go
41 forward from that? What exactly are you not liking in udev that makes
42 you want to get rid of it so badly? What is it doing that bothers
43 people so much?
44
45 Good luck,
46
47 greg k-h

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] Stability of /sys api Maxim Kammerer <mk@×××.su>
Re: [gentoo-dev] Stability of /sys api William Hubbs <williamh@g.o>
Re: [gentoo-dev] Stability of /sys api Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>