Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 09:51:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> To: ports@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: linux_base and devfs on 5.x: what to do about character devices Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1030604094947.93159Z-100000@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1030604093010.93159Y-100000@fledge.watson.org>
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On Wed, 4 Jun 2003, Robert Watson wrote: > It was recently brought to my attention that some users of FreeBSD have > somewhat populated /compat/linux/dev trees with hard-coded character > device entries in there. Often, this seems to occur on upgrded 4.x > machines running on 5.x The problem with this is that we're in the > throes of gradually moving away from hard-coded major device numbers, so > those entries will grow increasingly inaccurate over time. I'd like to > find out a bit more about how /dev is managed in linux compat land, what > ports do special things with it, and how we can make sure that the linux > compat code runs without any hitches on 5.2-RELEASE when we go -STABLE. > > >From a 5.x technical perspective, any ideal solution would avoid any > character device nodes anywhere outside of /dev, so that would mean > avoiding any entries in a linux-compat-specific dev, or making sure they > are symlinks to the real /dev, or the like. Feedback very welcome! Just to briefly follow up (sorry, should have been in the earlier e-mail), linux_base installs a null node, which can probably be ommitted if the lookup properly falls back to the real system /dev. Last I checked, vmware depended on rtc, which generated a pseudo-device (and possibly a node for it?), and on the vmnet bits, which are basically if_tap, and hence possibly another node. I'm guessing all of these could simply be "if not -current", or alternatively "make symlinks".y Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects robert@fledge.watson.org Network Associates Laboratories
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