Bug#447755: Minidisk support (was: Installation Question)

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Thursday 24 December 2009, Stephen Powell wrote:
> On 2009-12-24 at 10:56:59 -0500, Frans Pop wrote:
> > To start with:
> > - What device name does such a partition have?
> > - How could it be distinguished from a partitionable dasd?
>
> The definitive documentation for this is in
> "Device Drivers, Features, and Commands" [...]

Eh, all I needed was "/dev/dasd*" for the first question. But thanks.

> The other
> three formats, by definition, only have one partition.  In the case of
> CMS reserved, the partition is created explicitly by the CMS RESERVE
> command.  In the case of ldl and CMS non-reserved, the partition is
> implicit.

So for CMS formatted "unpartitionable" disks we get exactly the same 
devices as for "partitionable" dasds with only one partition. We should 
get:

/dev/dasdX
/dev/dasdX1

But you said in your earlier mail:
   Partman does not recognize that the disk already has a "partition"
   on it.

To me that seems to indicate that /dev/dasdX1 does *not* exist as otherwise 
I would expect partman to list it. Or maybe it is somehow invalid.

And to avoid users repartitioning the device the question remains: how can 
we "see" (in sysfs or otherwise) that this is a CMS formatted device that 
should not be repartitioned.
Is there for example a difference between cdl and cms formatted partitions 
in one of the files in /sys/bus/ccw/devices/<dev>/? Or maybe one of the 
files in /sys/block/dasdX (capability, range or ext_range perhaps?)?

I would really like to know *exactly* what devices exist in Debian 
Installer when you get to the partman stage. The /var/log/partman log file 
as it is at the point after partman has initialized itself would also be 
useful.

I guess you'll have to set up a small scratch system you can play with and 
run repeated installations on while we're working on this. I would suggest 
to create a system with exactly one new CMS formatted mini disk.

On Thursday 24 December 2009, Stephen Powell wrote:
> On 2009-12-24 at 12:32:18 -0500, Frans Pop wrote:
> > The output of the following command would be useful as well:
> > # parted /dev/<device> print
>
> bash: parted: command not found

'apt-get install parted'

> Of course, I wasn't running D-I at the time, I was running the
> installed system.  Do I have to run D-I?

On the installed system will be fine for now.