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Date:      Fri, 13 Feb 1998 15:43:16 -0800
From:      Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
To:        Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>
Cc:        Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com>, Paul Traina <pst@juniper.net>, core@FreeBSD.ORG, junichi@jp.freebsd.org, committers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: wfd block major number reassignment from 24 to 1 
Message-ID:  <199802132343.PAA05222@dingo.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 14 Feb 1998 00:21:37 %2B0100." <3663.887412097@critter.freebsd.dk> 

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> In message <199802132319.PAA05082@dingo.cdrom.com>, Mike Smith writes:
> >> I belive that persistence in DEVFS is a BAD thing, but I'm appearantly
> >> pretty alone on -core with this view...
> >
> >Have you ever wanted to change permissions on an entry in /dev?
> 
> yes.

Ok.

> In which case I always add it to /etc/rc.local so I'm sure it will
> be there on the next reboot.

Why?  Do you do this for all the other files throughout your system 
that you change the permissions on?  Do you *expect* permissions on 
arbitrary files to change when you reboot?

> >If not, then your stance is understandable.  But as soon as you accept 
> >that there may be more than one "right" set of permissions for 
> >something, you accept that persistence is required.
> 
> Yes I have, and no I do not accept that.

But you do.  Your entry in /etc/rc.local is an implementation of 
persistence.  Unfortunately, it's not adequte for at least the 
following reasons:

 - If you mount devfs somewhere else (think "chroot()"), the new 
   permissions are not necessarily going to come across (cf. 
   conversations with Julian on this).
 - There is no logical connection between /etc/rc.local and /dev
 - If a device node first appears after /etc/rc.local is run, it is not 
   possible to set its permissions.  This is an issue for PCI, PnP, 
   PCCARDs and CARDBUS at the very least.

> If I decide that disks should be "642 foo.mumble" on my machine,
> I should be able to express that such that when I add more disks
> it will DTRT.
>
> Permissions in /dev is a policy issue, and should be handled as
> such: ie, from a root-controlled config file.

No argument with anything there.

> I belive persistence in devfs (as in /dev) is a very bad thing.

You certainly haven't expressed that.  In fact, everything else you 
have said in this message directly contradicts that.   I can only 
conclude that you're reading a different meaning into "persistence" 
than I am, and by inference a lot of other people.
-- 
\\  Sometimes you're ahead,       \\  Mike Smith
\\  sometimes you're behind.      \\  mike@smith.net.au
\\  The race is long, and in the  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\  end it's only with yourself.  \\  msmith@cdrom.com



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