[parted-devel] reproducible output

[Brian C. Lane]

On Thu, Jun 06, 2019 at 12:17:54PM +0200, Steffen Dettmer wrote:
> As I understand the code there is no way to set or force a specific
> signature, so it always is a random value.
> 
> Why is a random value needed?

Because when you have multiple disks in the system you want to be able
to differentiate between them.

> Wouldn't it be better to create reproducible output by default?

No, not for 99% of the use cases.

> Probably there are more places (GUID in filesystem and such), so
> probably it makes no sense to write a patch for "mklabel msdos", what
> do you think?

Right, GPT also has GUIDs.

> Are are alternative approachs to my usecase (creating reproducible
> binaries) -- or is  this considered "wrong"?

I don't think it is something parted should be doing. If you have a
special use case like reproducible disk images then you should write a
utility to remove the unique parts.

-- 
Brian C. Lane (PST8PDT) - weldr.io - lorax - parted