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Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 09:54:04 +0100
From: Wolfgang Neumann <neumann@mailhost.rsn.hp.com>
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To: chad@anasazi.com
CC: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: FreeBSD MAKEDEV Hazard (fwd)
References: <9710302248.AA06145@chad.anasazi.com>
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Chad R. Larson wrote:
> 
> E-mail from one of my users...
> 
> Forwarded message:
> > From wbloom@wbloom.anasazi.com  Thu Oct 30 12:35:06 1997
> >
> > A caveat about the FreeBSD /dev/MAKEDEV script...
> >
> > If you ever have occasion to recreate special device files for storage
> > devices, then here is something to be very careful about.  Doing what
> > appears to be, at first blush, obvious from a brief look at the
> > MAKEDEV code in order to create new device files for, say, wd0...
> >
> >         sh MAKEDEV wd0
> >
> > ...is exactly what MAKEDEV itself does if called as 'sh MAKEDEV all'.
> >
> > However, the code which executes in order to create files for wd0
> > will first create wd0 itself, then...
> >
> > for slicepartname in s0h s1 s2 s3 s4
> > do
> >    sh MAKEDEV $name$unit$slicepartname
> > done
> >
> > The above code will create device files for wd0 slices (s[1-4]), will
> > create device files for partitions wd0[a-h], and will -DELETE- any
> > special device files for partitions wd0s[1-4][a-h].  If you use MAKEDEV
> > in this fashion to recreate device files for disks that happen to
> > have partitions on which your critical mountable filesystems are located
> > (e.g. /dev/wd0s1e) and then reboot, the boot may fail.
> >

This is exactely what happened to me the other day by playing around
with 'MAEKEDEV all' to generate some device files in FreeBSD 2.2.2 ...

Since I didn't had time yet to check for the boot failure, your info
saved me some time.

Thanks !
Wolfgang