ndev

[Vladimir Dronnikov]

Hello, list!

I've been developing my flavor of BB mdev, but eventually realized it
takes much effort to patch it. As the patch itself grew more than
original utility code, I decided to leave mdev alone and to move
changes to a new applet -- ndev -- source attached.

Reasons to do that:
* I haven't convinced BB to include a part for scanning /sys/devices
(I call it deep coldplug) -- so some other unknown utility/script is
responsible to load missed modules and so on;
* I want to employ netlink -- that way ndev is ready to become runit
service -- thus to be reliably restarted/logged/controlled. Further
improvement can be preparsing of /etc/mdev.conf upon ndev starting;
* netlink messages provide for environment variables to come in
uniform way: just read $DEVPATH/uevent line-by-line, fetch and analyse
needed strings;

I use it as follows:
* in initramfs /init: "ndev -sc" to fast create block device nodes --
they are used to locate root filesystem. -c means don't snoop into
/etc/mdev.conf
* in /sbin/init: "ndev -S &" to perform in background deep search for
all present devices (say, network adapters, too)
* during runtime as daemon to operate hotplug events: "ndev &"

I'd greatly appreciate your reviews, colleagues.

TIA,
--
Vladimir
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