Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2020 03:16:14 -0700 From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@tristatelogic.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Bug or Feature? -- Disappearing /dev/ nodes after mount Message-ID: <90121.1591956974@segfault.tristatelogic.com> In-Reply-To: <20200612082224.9c1e3797.freebsd@edvax.de>
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Thanks to Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> for the responses. In message <20200612082224.9c1e3797.freebsd@edvax.de>, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> wrote: >> 0) Am I the only one who has observed this specific behavior? > >No, it is normal and expected. OK, good. I find that it's always best to check if I am hallucinating. >> 1) Is this behavior documented somewhere that I just failed to look at? >> If so, where? > >Interesting question - I would be interested in that, too. As I said, after what was probably -not- an exhaustive search, I have not seen a scrap of documentation in any man page, or elsewhere, e.g. in the handbook, which documents the fact that certain device nodes which may be present under subdirectories of /dev may disappear upon a mount operation and then reappear once the corresponding filesystem is unmounted. >> 2) Is there a consensus that the magical disappearance of /dev/gpt/ device >> nodes during times when the corresponding partition is mounted represents >> a feature, rather than a bug? > >As I said, it's normal... "Normal" is in the eye of the beholder. If I -physically- remove a piece of hardware from a given system, then yes, in that instance I do expect relevant device nodes under /dev/ to likewise go away. Until today however, I was not aware that /dev nodes might automagically disappear under other circumstances, and frankly, the realization that they do was rather disconcerting, even if it does make a kind of sense, when viewed in a certain way. Now that I know the behavior is expected, I certainly shall not complain about it. It does in fact make a certain kind of sense, and I see the probable rationale. The lack of documetation on this behavior is however a clear trap for the naive and unwary, and should be rectified. Regards, rfg
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