From owner-freebsd-current  Wed Jun 19 07:02:51 1996
Return-Path: owner-current
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id HAA14936
          for current-outgoing; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:02:51 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from godzilla.zeta.org.au (godzilla.zeta.org.au [203.2.228.19])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA14929;
          Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:02:44 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from bde@localhost) by godzilla.zeta.org.au (8.6.12/8.6.9) id XAA19561; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 23:59:58 +1000
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 23:59:58 +1000
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199606191359.XAA19561@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: julian@ref.tfs.com, pst@shockwave.com
Subject: Re: Bug in NFS
Cc: bde@zeta.org.au, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org, phk@FreeBSD.org,
        tony@fit.qut.edu.au
Sender: owner-current@FreeBSD.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

>> It was my understanding that no further development is going into devfs and
>> that it's not ready for prime-time without symlinks and permission changes.
>> Please tell me I'm wrong?
> you are wrong..

> the following items need to be done in DEVSF

> 1/ there is a problem in vnode allocation that canresult in crashes.
> 2/ symlink support needs to be added.. it's kinda trivial,
>				but needs to be done
> 3/ I think I want to add support for named pipes, as Iconsider them to be
>		"pseudo devices" and they are often made in /dev.
>		also not rocket science. also takes time... (what's that?)

Er, this means he's right, except "further" should be "current".
Development of devfs is stalled.

I disagree with putting symlinks and especially named pipes in it.  They
would delay the deployment of a usable version and bloat the kernel.  To
support symlinks in /dev, fix union mounts or "union" file systems.
Perhaps union mounts already work well enough for this limited
application.  I tried:

	# mkdir /tmp/z
	# ln -s /dev/zero /tmp/z/zz
	# mount -t null -o union /tmp/z /dev
	# ls -lF /dev/zz
	[...] /dev/zz@ -> /dev/zero	# works
	# od /dev/zz
	[...]				# works
	^C
	# modstat
	[...]				# even the lkm nullfs worked
	# umount /dev			# I don't trust this :-)
	# modunload -i 0		# or this

Bruce