Device File Creation Time

[Ian Lepore]

On Wed, 2014-02-19 at 13:44 -0500, John Baldwin wrote:
> 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.
> 

That's actually a time of -1 converted to some local timezone.  I'm not
sure that's germane, just thought I'd mention it.

  revolution > date -jur -1
  Wed Dec 31 23:59:59 UTC 1969

-- Ian