On Mon, Nov 02, 2020 at 10:24:05PM +0100, Javier Gonzalez wrote: > If I understand correctly, the model would be that a namespace will > always have (i) a character device associated where I/O is always allowed > through user formed commands, and if the namespace has full support in > the kernel (ii) a block device where I/O is as it is today. In case of > (ii) both interfaces can be used for I/O. Yes. > While we work on iterations for c), do you believe it is reasonable to > merge a version of the current path that follows the PI convention for > unsupported command sets and features? I would assume that we will have > to convert PI to this model too when it is available. I'm rather torn. I think the model of the zero capacity block device is a really, really bad one and we should haver never added it. That being said, for a ZNS namespace that does not support Zone Append I can think of a model that actually makes sense: expose it as a read-only block device, as we can actually read from it perfectly fine, and that would also allow ioctl access.
