Re: kern/45179: NetBSD disklabel does not support devices larger 2 TByte

[christos%zoulas.com@localhost (Christos Zoulas)]

The following reply was made to PR kern/45179; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: christos%zoulas.com@localhost (Christos Zoulas)
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost, kern-bug-people%netbsd.org@localhost, 
        gnats-admin%netbsd.org@localhost, netbsd-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: kern/45179: NetBSD disklabel does not support devices larger 2 
TByte
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:27:31 -0400

 On Jul 25,  4:05pm, Wolfgang.Stukenbrock%nagler-company.com@localhost 
(Wolfgang.Stukenbrock%nagler-company.com@localhost) wrote:
 -- Subject: kern/45179: NetBSD disklabel does not support devices larger 2 TB
 
 |      The partition size and the offset fields in the disklabel structure for 
patitions is only 32-bit.
 |      If you have a larger disk or stripe some disks via raidframe, you may 
end up in a disk bejong 2 TByte.
 |      In such a situtation the current implementation of the NetBSD disklabel 
makes makes everything behind the first
 |      2 TByte unavailable.
 |      Accedently the value is not clamped to 0xffffffff by the disklabel 
program. The additional bits are simply dropped
 |      and this can result in a very small disk size, if the real size is e.g. 
0x204000000 (-> 0x0400000).
 |      The problem also appears on (external) HW-raid-controler that offer a 
large "disk" that should be partitioned by the
 |      operating system into smaller peaces.
 | >How-To-Repeat:
 |      Stripe some disk with raidframe. You will get problems putting a 
disklabel on it if the size exceeds 2 TByte.
 | >Fix:
 |      A new version of the disklabel structure is needed with 64 bit fields 
for the partition information and at least some other
 |      disk describing fields.
 |      The kernel and other disklabel-processing programs - such as disklabel 
- must be extended. (I do not know the complete
 |      list of affected programs till now - sorry)
 |      Accedently I need this "now", but have no time to port it. Sorry.
 
 Can't you use wedges and gpt?
 
 christos