Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 15:10:06 -0700 From: bmah@CA.Sandia.GOV (Bruce A. Mah) To: jin@george.lbl.gov Cc: bmah@california.sandia.gov, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee Subject: Re: SCSI disk naming problem Message-ID: <199910012210.PAA82111@nimitz.ca.sandia.gov> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 01 Oct 1999 14:35:26 PDT." <199910012135.OAA24213@george.lbl.gov>
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If memory serves me right, jin@george.lbl.gov wrote:
> bmah@CA.Sandia.GOV wrote:
> } Well...I personally prefer the short names. On systems with multiple
> } controllers, the commercial UNIX I used (Ultrix) just continued its
> } numbering with rz0, rz1, rz2, ..., rz6, rz7, rz8, ... FreeBSD lets you
> } do exactly the same thing.
>
> The thing is what is rz44 representing? If kernel spits:
>
> "rz44 hardware error 105: write failure -- replace it"
>
> Which disk are you going to shutdown and replace without looking at
> /etc/fstab or /sys/i386/conf/CRUEENT_RUN ?
> What happens if when you see the message and the host is hosed and
> needs to be rebooted -- at this time both above files are not available -- ?
You have a good point, but I also believe that part of any good disaster
recovery scheme is having critical system information (like /etc/fstab,
dmesg output, etc.) in hardcopy form. And believe me, we've had enough
disasters around here the past six months to see the value of that. :-(
> I do not think dac5t4 is that worse than rz44 (just two charaters long).
> Maybe it is better. You immediately know the disk with ID 4 on the SCSI
> controller 5 is one having trouble.
And there's also two more characters you need to remember to type
correctly.
> } Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you mean when you say "by hand". I'm
> } envisioning an environment where you have a lot of similarly-configured
> } machines. So you build a kernel (based on GENERIC) to wire down
> } devices ONE TIME, and distribute that kernel out to all the different
> } machines.
>
> If kernel can do this automatically, no one has to rebuild the kernel
> any more, and no one has to remember every thing that may reduce sys-admin
> costs.
OK. I'm almost convinced on this point, but I still think that if
you're managing 100+ machines, you probably already have an easy
mechanism for distributing out kernels to them (think "security
patches").
> This is special for new users/sys-admins. I personal built 1MB script to
> setup FreeBSD over the 10 years. It is easy for me to add a couple of lines
> for wired down the SCSI disk name. But, what is about for the new suers and
> new sys-admins. Should we make things more easier for them?
Making things more easier for new users seems (IMHO) inconsistent with
device names that are much longer than they need to be for the common
case.
> } > Because it is FreeWare so we cannot do some thing good
> } > as commercial UNIXs do?
> }
> } I don't understand this argument. "Free" (i.e. open source) vs.
> } commercial doesn't have anything to do with this issue.
>
> This was some one screamed a couple of years ago. When I pointed out
> we can do something good like commercial company doing, and one person
> jumped on top of me and said that Hey, this is FreeWare,but not commercial
> software, why we should do things like commercial company does?
Please don't apply the thinking of one person to an entire community.
We've worked together before, and I know you're smarter than that. :-)
I'm going to summarize my position, make one final remark, and then get
out of the way.
1. I agree that wiring device names down is a good thing.
2. I think that this probably should be the default behavior, but I
haven't put enough thought into it to be completely convinced.
3. I disagree with your proposal for longer, more descriptive,
device names. I think that it will make the system harder to
use for a majority of installations.
Ultimately, changing the status quo is going to involve someone (either
yourself or someone else) writing up some patches and submitting them
for -core's approval.
Cheers,
Bruce.
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