Re: [RFC][PATCH] block ioctl to read/write last sector

Michael E Brown (michael_e_brown@dell.com)
Wed, 7 Feb 2001 09:35:38 -0600 (CST)


On 7 Feb 2001, Andi Kleen wrote:

> But what happens when you e.g. run a software blocksize of 4096 and the device
> has >1 inaccessible 512 byte sector at the end?
> I think it would be better to pass in a offset in 512 byte units to a special
> ioctl (and do error checking in the driver for impossible requests)

This is a valid point.

Can you tell me how it would come about that we would have a blocksize !=
1024?

Can you show the proposed interface to the new ioctl?

I was limited in that I could only figure out how to get one userspace
char* into/out of the ioctl. How would you propose to pass in the offset?
I had problems finding documentation on the more complicated IOCTL calls,
and since I am a kernel hacking novice, I went the easiest and most direct
route.

If you tell me the proposed interface and some sample code, I can code,
test and resubmit it. Thank you for the feedback.

Michael Brown
Linux System Group
Dell Computer Corp

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