Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 15:29:07 -0800 From: Dima Dorfman <dima@unixfreak.org> To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk> Cc: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: bin/25273: add fs type feature to vnconfig(8) to allow direct mount of iso images and co. Message-ID: <20010225232907.977053E09@bazooka.unixfreak.org> In-Reply-To: Message from Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk> of "Sat, 24 Feb 2001 17:41:24 %2B0100." <8220.983032884@critter>
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> mdconfig -c -f mycd.iso -feature cd9660,/cdimg > > In my book that is not the UNIX way. The UNIX way is: > > mount -t cd9660 /dev/`mdconfig -c -f mycd.iso` /cdimg > > And you can do that without changing mdconfig... > > Comments ? Suppose I wanted to mount a swap-backed filesystem (e.g., what one would normally do with MFS). The UNIX way would be to write a simple script which ran mdconfig, disklabel, newfs, then mount, right? So should every FreeBSD admin have to write this script themselves, or should FreeBSD provide something to ease this task? That said, I like your way much better than mine (which is actually vnconfig's); the point I'm trying to make, however, is that not everyone who wants to mount a cd image knows how to do that, and, in the case of mounting a swap-backing filesystem, wants to write a script which has already been written by lots of other people. FreeBSD does not, cannot, and should not provide a hand-holding way of doing everything, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't provide hand-holding ways of doing certain things. Take mergemaster, for example; I think everyone would agree that it's a very useful tool, but then again it isn't extermely difficult to do what it does manually. Does that mean mergemaster shouldn't be included in FreeBSD? I certainly hope not. I guess what I'm trying to convey is that there needs to be some way, besides writing a custom script, to configure and mount a swap-backed filesystem. This patch didn't do that, but it brought it one step closer (the 'feature' mechanism could've been expanded to do disklabel/newfs). This has been discussed before, and I think the general consensus was that something like this would be ideal (if I'm wrong, please tell me and I'll shut up), but noone knew how to do it (should there be a separate script/program that runs mdconfig/disklabel/etc., or should mdconfig do it, etc.?). md is supposed to replace MFS (which is good), but I think it's lacking in this respect; doing the above is very easy with MFS. As said many times before, I'm willing to submit patches for this stuff, if only someone would enlighten me on which ideas are evil and should be shot, and which aren't! Regards Dima Dorfman dima@unixfreak.org P.S. On a slightly unrelated note, do you have any plans to MFC the new "singing and dancing" md to RELENG_4? If all you need someone to do is confirm that it works and send you a diff, I can do that. I think the earlier it's MFC'd the less outcry there will be when vn and MFS meet their doom. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message
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