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Date:      Fri, 21 Apr 1995 09:56:52 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Peter Dufault <dufault@hda.com>
To:        wilko@yedi.iaf.nl (Wilko Bulte)
Cc:        terry@cs.weber.edu, pritc003@maroon.tc.umn.edu, rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com, hackers@freefall.cdrom.com
Subject:   Re: [DEVFS] your opinions sought!
Message-ID:  <199504211356.JAA16639@hda.com>
In-Reply-To: <199504201827.UAA01354@yedi.iaf.nl> from "Wilko Bulte" at Apr 20, 95 08:27:20 pm

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Wilko Bulte writes:
> 
> > 2)	Automatic generation/removal of devices on bus reset.  For
> > 	instance, attach a device to the SCSI device chain, or
> > 	power on a tape on the chain that was not powered on at
> > 	boot time, and it can be made available.  The existance
> > 	of a device file is no longer an ambiguous marker.
> 
> Yuck! Powering up/down for SCSI devices on the fly is generally a
> sure way to hang the buses, screw the disks etc. It *should* work,
> but my experience shows that it has something like a 20% chance to
> bomb.
> 

This is true, though with practice you only have to restore your
disks once a year.  We still have a nasty bug someplace that results in
unending disk timeouts and eventual system death.  Usually, though
our disk drivers
will redo a transfer that was in progress when a device powered up on
the bus, assuming the disk drive properly detects the power up.

A utility that suspends all activity on the SCSI bus will make powering
up a device safe, though, and I've been thinking of doing it (suspend
activity, beep when all activity is suspended, delay for 10 seconds, and
permit activity to resume).

To be honest I power things up on the bus all the time.  I also do
backups at night.

-- 
Peter Dufault               Real Time Machine Control and Simulation
HD Associates, Inc.         Voice: 508 433 6936
dufault@hda.com             Fax:   508 433 5267



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