On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 11:53:20AM -0600, Logan Gunthorpe wrote: > > > On 2019-07-25 11:40 a.m., Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 11:23:21AM -0600, Logan Gunthorpe wrote: > >> cdev_get_by_path() attempts to retrieve a struct cdev from > >> a path name. It is analagous to blkdev_get_by_path(). > >> > >> This will be necessary to create a nvme_ctrl_get_by_path()to > >> support NVMe-OF passthru. > > > > Ick, why? Why would a cdev have a "pathname"? > > So we can go from "/dev/nvme0" (which points to a char device) to its > struct cdev and eventually it's struct nvme_ctrl. Doing it this way also > allows supporting symlinks that might be created by udev rules. Why do you have a "string" within the kernel and are not using the normal open() call from userspace on the character device node on the filesystem in your namespace/mount/whatever? Where is this random string coming from? Why is this so special that no one else has ever needed it? thanks, greg k-h