Hi Vinod, Thank you for your response. I have read Chap 13 of ldd a few times. What I am looking for is pointers to send read/write commands to a block device, not how to write a block device driver. Regards, Ahmed. --- Vinod Sreedharan <vinod.sreedharan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >reads/writes to this block device, without any type > of > >caching, and without going through any layers (e.g > >filesystem). > > I guess what you want to do is "raw I/O" > > >1) Allocate buffer_head structure > >2) Allocate memory for data (read or write). > > (This is where I need some pointers as to which > >funstions to use, and where to allocate memory > from). > >3) Minimal initialization of buffer_head structure, > so > >make_generic_request can carry out the operation. > > (Need some pointers here, as there are too many > >fields in buffer_head structure). > >4) Call generic_make_request(). > >5) Upon completion of command, free memory. > > Not sure if you should work with buffer heads to do > raw-IO. If you are talking of 2.4 kernel, kiobuf > interfaces should be used. > > You may want to read Chapter 13 of the ldd book by > Rubini for information. Its online in case you > didn't know! > > Hope this helps. > > Thanks, > Vinod > > >Steps 2 and 3 are where I am a bit lost at this > point. > > Can someone please point me to examples in the > linux > >kernel source where this is done, or examples of > >applications that might do this. > > > >Thank you, > >Ahmed. > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________ > >Do you Yahoo!? > >Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! > >http://vote.yahoo.com > > > >-- > >Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the > Linux kernel. > >Archive: > http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ > >FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/ > > > _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
