Bug#488565: should check status of /dev/mtdblock* before trying to write to it

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

Package: flash-kernel
Version: 1.1
Severity: normal

Hi,

I just found out why flashing the kernel to the flash of my Thecus N2100
was not working: I had disabled udev there, and as a result there were
no /dev/mtdblock{1,2} files which flash-kernel wants to write to.
Apparently flash-kernel does not check whether these files exist and/or
are block devices, either; it will happily create regular files under
/dev without any error message.

A 'test -b /dev/mtdblock1' before trying to write to it would probably
be appropriate.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: arm (armv5tel)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-iop32x
Locale: LANG=nl_BE.ISO-8859-15@euro, LC_CTYPE=nl_BE.ISO-8859-15@euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)

Versions of packages flash-kernel depends on:
ii  devio                         1.2-1      correctly read (or write) a region

flash-kernel recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information