Re: Removing fdisk and bsdlabel (legacy partition tools)

Am 25.01.24 um 16:38 schrieb Ed Maste:
> On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 at 12:30, Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
>>
>> Those are the only users in the tree, but not for long :)
> 
> I have some reviews open to remove some old fdisk / diskabel /
> bsdlabel invocations from the tree.
> 
> With those applied, for fdisk I see the following references
> (excluding sbin/fdisk/* and comments, old examples, etc.):
> 
> contrib/netbsd-tests/sbin/gpt/t_gpt.sh

This test contains NetBSD specific details and will not run
on FreeBSD.

> tests/sys/cddl/zfs/bin/zpool_smi.ksh

More than 99% of the tests in tests/sys/cddl/zfs are skipped,
including this one, which relies on commands that do not exist
on FreeBSD.

> For bsdlabel / disklabel:
> 
> sbin/growfs/tests/legacy_test.pl

This test could easily be changed to use gpart.

> tools/regression/msdosfs/msdosfstest-2.sh

Trivially fixed.

> tools/regression/tmpfs/t_vnd

Trivially fixed.

> tools/tools/nanobsd/legacy.sh

Does already use gpart and could easily be fixed.

> contrib/netbsd-tests/kernel/t_umount.sh
> contrib/netbsd-tests/kernel/t_umountstress.sh
> contrib/netbsd-tests/sbin/gpt/t_gpt.sh

These are unused and won't run without modification.

> sbin/newfs/runtest00.sh
> sbin/newfs/runtest01.sh

Unused and do not run on a current version of FreeBSD.

> These will need to be addressed before actually removing any of these
> binaries, of course.

I could fix those that are actually usable and installed on
a current FreeBSD system within at most 1 hour.

>> I wouldn't object to making these ports, but both these programs use 'sekret'
>> bits from the kernel that might not remain exposed as we clean things up.
>> Though the IOCTLs they do (or used to do) may no longer be relevant. It's
>> been so long that I've forgotten....
> 
> If we eventually stop exporting those kernel interfaces the tools
> would fail anyway, so IMO we can keep providing the kernel interfaces
> along with the headers etc, and keep building from source until/unless
> we drop support altogether.

The bsdlabel/disklabel/fdisk programs could be rewritten using
gpart without too much effort, at least for the use cases that
have not become obsolete (e.g. CHS specifications) and only for
use in scripts (i.e. no fdisk interactive edit mode).

Even parsing of the disktab format and a conversion to gpart
backup format for use by gpart restore should not be too hard.

That would keep the commands available for those that use them
in scripts outside the FreeBSD sources, but would also allow to
remove the kernel interfaces used by those legacy tools.

I'd be willing to write those emulations of legacy tools, if
there is interest in going that way ...

Regards, STefan