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SubjectRe: Any "file" utility for partitions?
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>>>>> "Andries" == Andries Brouwer <Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl> writes:


Andries> Bjorn Ekwall: : Let me tell you what I want to do with
Andries> this utility:

Andries> : When booting a system enhanced with bzImage and initrd
Andries> I would : like to be able to scan a large set of possible
Andries> partitions. : If a partition is readable, I would like
Andries> to be able to find : out more precisely what type it is,
Andries> so that I can more or less : automatically find the
Andries> _real_ root partition without having to : encode this in
Andries> the initrd image, or having to pass an argument : to the
Andries> boot-mechanism (lilo, loadlin, whatever...).

Andries> Horrors! That is not the way to write system software.
Andries> How are you going to distinguish my root partition from
Andries> the backup that I made last month (before doing something
Andries> dangerous) with "dd if=/dev/hdc3 of=/dev/sda9" ? How are
Andries> you going to distinguish between my five root partitions
Andries> that all occur in /etc/lilo.conf ?

Andries> If you want to find the root partition, then read all
Andries> type 83 partitions, and check for the presence of
Andries> /etc/passwd. That will work for 80% of the people. But
Andries> I am not going to run such software.

I'm used to Solaris systems reporting "last mounted on /path" while
fscking an unmounted device...
I suppose that the superblock keeps track of the last mounted path...

Then two things can happen:
a) you have only one dev with a last mounted as /root and you try
mounting it as root...

b) you have more than one dev in that condition... the smartest thing
a "smart" boot system can do in this condition would be IMHO to
require user choice...


regards,
Pedro.


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