Using any network interface whatsoever

[Matthew Seaman]

Mike Meyer wrote:
> In <4438630E.4090300 at deadcafe.de>, Daniel Rock <freebsd at deadcafe.de> typed:
>> So I doubt that the overwriting of an Ingres database really
>> happened in Solaris, like some other poster described - unless the
>> administrator fiddled with /etc/path_to_inst by hand (you are free
>> to shoot in your own foot).
> 
> That happened very early in the life of Solaris, in the early 90s.
> Persistent numbering was added to Solaris in response to this incident
> (there were probably others as well).
> 
> This was on a relatively large server, with something like 4 SCSI
> buses. A drive was added to a previously unused bus, making it appear
> "between" two drives that were already in the system. This gave all
> the drives further on in the probe sequence a device number one higher
> than they had previously had.

It sounds for me as if you (Mike Meyer) are asking for something like
'acpidump -d' or 'pciconf -l -v' output, but translated into a filesystem
abstraction -- ie a tree of directories corresponding to different busses
containing device files ordered according to the bus slot they are
plugged into.  This would be something that you can use either in place
of the traditional /dev or as an adjunct to it.  I believe Solaris has
a /devices tree which does essentially this.

In practice however on the systems we deploy we know that the principal
network interfaces are the ones on-board the motherboard, and we know
that em0 or bge0 is the one closest to the PSU.  Similarly for other
devices -- disk device numbers can be deduced from the physical slot they
are in.  Sure it's just a convention, and it helps that the equipment
supplier we use is very consistent about such things, and that in general
we don't go around plugging USB disk devices into server systems that
frequently.  But on the whole it works.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       7 Priory Courtyard
                                                      Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Ramsgate
                                                      Kent, CT11 9PW

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 250 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/attachments/20060409/3abfb1d6/signature.pgp