From owner-freebsd-bugs Mon Oct 13 01:51:19 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA02508 for bugs-outgoing; Mon, 13 Oct 1997 01:51:19 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-bugs) Received: from sax.sax.de (sax.sax.de [193.175.26.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id BAA02499 for ; Mon, 13 Oct 1997 01:51:13 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from j@uriah.heep.sax.de) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by sax.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id KAA01620; Mon, 13 Oct 1997 10:51:09 +0200 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.8.7/8.8.5) id IAA02277; Mon, 13 Oct 1997 08:47:14 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <19971013084714.MU25376@uriah.heep.sax.de> Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 08:47:14 +0200 From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: volf@oasis.IAEhv.nl Subject: Re: bin/4303 References: <199710122354.JAA13707@godzilla.zeta.org.au> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DC 47 E6 E4 FF A6 E9 8F 93 21 E0 7D F9 12 D6 4E Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) In-Reply-To: <199710122354.JAA13707@godzilla.zeta.org.au>; from Bruce Evans on Oct 13, 1997 09:54:49 +1000 Sender: owner-freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk As Bruce Evans wrote: > >any device that was opened by the time the dump happens. > > Then it would be impossible to dump to (active) swap devices. Swap devices You're right. > No, such devices are very special, although swap devices are not. > Someone broke the minor numbering convention for floppies and and cdroms, > but drivers for these disk devices and all tape devices won't have a > dump routine, so dumpon on them will fail. The partition `b' convention was just this, a convention. The only place where it was bogusly enforced was the dump code. I'm really interested in a dump routine for tape drives, too. I think the first 64 KB of a swap partition aren't used at all. So couldn't we put a `magic' there once swapon has activated swapping on it, something that would be totally different in a live filesystem? This might be a better indication for a swap partition than the test for some non-documented (albeit conventionally used) bits in a minor number. Tape drives need different treatment anyway (like prompting the operator for a medium). -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)