In message <F1E1A773-FE03-4E20-906D-601FC522D750@shagadelic.org>Jason Thorpe writes
>
>On Oct 26, 2005, at 10:22 AM, Bill Studenmund wrote:
>
>> In the past, we (NetBSD folks) have talked about a devfs. One issue  
>> that
>> has come up (I'll be honest, I've raised it a lot) 

And me, too. I suspect Thor Lancelot Simon and a few others are in the
same camp.

>> is a desire to  
>> retain
>> permission changes across boots, and to tie devices (when possible)  
>> to a
>> device-specific attribute rather than a probe order.
>
>The permission thing is solvable using scripts that can fix up the  
>perms after mount.

Huh?? But for those of us like Bill and Thor, that doesn't even come
clsoe to a solution.  Not when you need to build, and freeze, a
pre-defined set of device-node and permissions.  When that's what you
really want, *no* devfs is a workable subsitute for persistent
filesystem state.  (think: securelevel 2...)


>The "nodes named after attributes" thing is interesting... and  
>largely something I'm concerned about with wedges, although in that  
>case, it's pretty easy to handle from within wedges itself.
>
>> Does FreeBSD's devfs support locators and persistent information? Are
>> there plans to support something like that, if not?
>
>FreeBSD's devfs does not, to my knowledge, include the things that  
>you have mentioned above.
>
>FWIW, I think a devfs based on our new tmpfs would be better for NetBSD.

Maybe so, but how can we support a "no devfs allowed here" for those
who depend on the decades-old existinge semantics?