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sysfs: add /sys/dev/{char,block} to lookup sysfs path by major:minor

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Why?:
There are occasions where userspace would like to access sysfs
attributes for a device but it may not know how sysfs has named the
device or the path.  For example what is the sysfs path for
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3160827AS_5MT004CK?  With this change a call to
stat(2) returns the major:minor then userspace can see that
/sys/dev/block/8:32 links to /sys/block/sdc.

What are the alternatives?:
1/ Add an ioctl to return the path: Doable, but sysfs is meant to reduce
   the need to proliferate ioctl interfaces into the kernel, so this
   seems counter productive.

2/ Use udev to create these symlinks: Also doable, but it adds a
   udev dependency to utilities that might be running in a limited
   environment like an initramfs.

3/ Do a full-tree search of sysfs.

[kay.sievers@vrfy.org: fix duplicate registrations]
[kay.sievers@vrfy.org: cleanup suggestions]

Cc: Neil Brown <neilb@suse.de>
Cc: Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>
Reviewed-by: SL Baur <steve@xemacs.org>
Acked-by: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>
Acked-by: Mark Lord <lkml@rtr.ca>
Acked-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Signed-off-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
This commit is contained in:
Dan Williams
2008-04-21 10:51:07 -07:00
committed by Greg Kroah-Hartman
parent 93ded9b8fd
commit e105b8bfc7
7 changed files with 124 additions and 2 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

20
Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-dev Normal file
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What: /sys/dev
Date: April 2008
KernelVersion: 2.6.26
Contact: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Description: The /sys/dev tree provides a method to look up the sysfs
path for a device using the information returned from
stat(2). There are two directories, 'block' and 'char',
beneath /sys/dev containing symbolic links with names of
the form "<major>:<minor>". These links point to the
corresponding sysfs path for the given device.
Example:
$ readlink /sys/dev/block/8:32
../../block/sdc
Entries in /sys/dev/char and /sys/dev/block will be
dynamically created and destroyed as devices enter and
leave the system.
Users: mdadm <linux-raid@vger.kernel.org>