[parted-devel] [PATCH] libparted: Fixed bug in initializing and re-reading partition table of FBA devices

[Phillip Susi]

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On 10/25/2013 1:45 AM, Nageswara R Sastry wrote:
> 
> Subject: [PATCH] libparted: Fixed bug in initializing and
> re-reading partition table of FBA devices
> 
> From: Nageswara R Sastry <rnsastry at linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> 
> Fixed Block Access (FBA) DASDs are mainframe-specific disk devices 
> that are layred out as a sequence of 512-byte sectors. In contrast 
> to ECKD DASDs, these disks do not require formatting and resemble 
> the LBA layout of non-mainframe disks. Despite this resemblance, 
> the Linux kernel applies special handling during partition
> detection for FBA DASDs, resulting in a single, immutable partition
> being reported.

Are you saying that this kind of disk can not really be partitioned (
since the kernel always reports exactly one partition for the whole
disk )?  If so then it does not make much sense to run parted in the
first place.

It looks like your patch asks the kernel to throw out the partition
table that parted has just installed with BLKPG and go back to that
single dummy partition.

Also if you are going to retry the ioctl a few times, you should have
a small delay between each attempt.


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