Device File Creation Time

[John Baldwin]

On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 3:02:16 pm Bruno Lauzé wrote:
> root at pcbsd:/dev # stat /dev/ada0
> 1895890688 97 crw-rw-rw- 1 root operator 97 0 "Feb 18 10:52:11 2014" "Feb 17 
09:36:43 2014" "Feb 17 09:36:43 2014" "Dec 31 17:59:59 1969" 4096 0 0 
/dev/ada0
> 
> root at pcbsd:/dev # stat /dev/ada0p2
> 1895890688 103 crw-rw-rw- 1 root operator 103 0 "Feb 18 10:52:05 2014" "Feb 
17 09:36:43 2014" "Feb 17 09:36:43 2014" "Dec 31 17:59:59 1969" 4096 0 0 
/dev/ada0p2
> 
> root at pcbsd:/dev # stat /dev/ada0p3
> 1895890688 105 crw-rw-rw- 1 root operator 105 0 "Feb 18 10:52:21 2014" "Feb 
17 09:36:43 2014" "Feb 17 09:36:43 2014" "Dec 31 17:59:59 1969" 4096 0 0 
/dev/ada0p3
> 
> As we can see all files in devfs reports Dec 31 1969 as creation time.
> 
> Can we look to manage this value to know when a certain device was 
installed?
> 
> It would be really great to know when a disk was replaced.
> 
> Would there be any other mechanism to accomplish this?

I think if you hot attach a device post-boot it will have the time it was 
attached as the birth time.  I think it is only devices created during boot 
that use time 0.

-- 
John Baldwin