Subject: Re: device names (Re: your mail)
To: Eduardo E. Horvath <eeh@one-o.com>
From: Brett Lymn <blymn@awadi.com.au>
List: tech-kern
Date: 01/24/1997 11:48:43
According to Eduardo E. Horvath:
>
>Actually, SunOS 5.x still uses /dev/sd0a (at least 5.5+ do) and if you
>look in /devices you will notice .../sd@0a, etc.  The /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0
>stuff is only for SVR4 compatibility 8^).
>

Uhhhhh not quite - I saw the smiley but the presumption is a very bad
one in some situations.  There is a subtlety with some tools, like
newfs, that will correctly determine if the disk is mounted _only_ if
you give it the c0..... device - we had someone here blow away a
mounted partition because they made a mistake with newfs and
specifiying the rsd0... style naming.

So, to make this at least remotely relevant, if you are going to allow
differing device names then make sure that all the tools operating on
those devices work consistently no matter how you mix up the naming!!!

-- 
Brett Lymn, Computer Systems Administrator, AWA Defence Industries
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