Re: Dealing with strange disk devices

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> To provide a bit more context:  this code path with the potential
> division by zero has been in the tree for over a decade; [...]

I once found I had a disk that was just broken enough to appear as a
disk, butit reported itself as having zero something (zero
sectors/track? zero tracks/cylinder? whatever) which provoked a
divide-by-zero.  I of course patched this in my tree.  (This was in
2012, but it was under 1.4T, so I don't think I bothered reporting it
anywhere.  I don't recall trying the same disk on something more
recent, though I also don't recall why not.  I don't find comparable
commits in my other trees, so if I did try it, it presumably didn't
crash the relevant kernel(s).)

So, while I agree that there are vanishingly small numbers of "real"
devices showing such behaviour, I also think it a bug for attaching a
disk to crash the kernel, even if the disk is broken.  I see changes of
this sort as defense against broken disks if nothing else.

/~\ The ASCII				  Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML		mouse%rodents-montreal.org@localhost
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B