From owner-freebsd-hackers  Sun Jan 18 02:21:19 1998
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Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 14:29:57 +1100
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199801180329.OAA13387@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: bde@FreeBSD.ORG, dg@FreeBSD.ORG, pst@juniper.net
Subject: Re: isdisk() kludge in kernel
Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
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>I was looking at isdisk and wanted to hurl chunks.
>
>This is used by spec_open to determine if we should be allowed to open a
>disk device when securelevel >= 1.

It isn't even used in -current.

>I'd like to propose changing spec_open to simply NEVER allowing the open of
>a block device, or character device, if a character device has a block
>device associated with it and eliminate isdisk() in kern_conf entirely.

This would break at least backups to SCSI tape devices, since st has both
block and character devices, but tapes aren't disks.  Perhaps the broken
version is correct - isdisk() really means isasecurityholeifmountable().

Bruce