Experiences with Gpart

[Vadim Goncharov]

Hi Marcel Moolenaar! 

On Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:39:43 -0800; Marcel Moolenaar wrote about 'Re: Experiences with Gpart':

>>>>>>> Despite the intent of gpt's being to make such nesting
>>>>>>> unnecessary, as
>>>>>>> a means of defining the structure of gmirrors, which take up the
>>>>>>> entire extent of whatever encloses them, the nesting was very
>>>>>>> helpful.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe nesting simply works if you comment the first if in
>>>>>> g_part_gpt_probe() in
>>>>>> sys/geom/part/g_part_gpt.c ? I don't get why this is restricted,
>>>>>> should be
>>>>>> my
>>>>>> decision to nest or not imo.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nesting is not allowed as per the GPT specification.
>>>>
>>>> OK. It doesn't make much sense for slices too, but is still allowed.
>>> A nested MBR provides for backward compatibility by
>>> presenting a GPT partition as a drive to those legacy
>>> OSes or tools. I don't think it was needed, but it
>>> was envisioned that way, AFAICT. It makes sense in a
>>> weird way.
>>
>> But, allowing for configuring partitioning as user wants (and  
>> complex nesting,
>> if one wish) was always strong benefit of the GEOM. So why not? It  
>> is allowed
>> author of this thread to manage mirrors the way he wants, not the  
>> way somebody
>> enforces. Unix is tools, not policy (c)
>
> Gratuitous non-compliance in the name of freedom is
> not the Unix-way of things.

Unix always had at least knob allow_me_to_shoot_in_the_foot, if now allowed
this directly. So what alternative do you propose to group partitions together
or to split GPT partitions? bsdlabel? But that is limited to 26 partitions
and 2^32 sectors.

-- 
WBR, Vadim Goncharov. ICQ#166852181       mailto:vadim_nuclight at mail.ru
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