Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 8 Jun 1999 12:10:09 -0400 | From | Raul Miller <> | Subject | Re: Migrating to larger numbers |
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Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au> wrote: > However, for the sake of argument, let's say we write device drivers > and make use of dynamic device numbers. I don't actually see where the > problem is.
Ok, consider this scenario:
(1) Some application is using device files over NFS. [If this isn't happening, there's no problem with 64 bit device numbers.] Let's use your "exporting root to legacy machines" case...
(2) The system uses SCSI. [This is an example where 64 bit device numbers might be good.]
(3) The NFS server gets taken down for a few minutes and disks get added to it. [This is the case where the semantics of the device numbers become significant.]
NFS semantics suggest that the application freeze while the server is unavailable, and everything continue on after it comes back up.
-- Raul
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