devtmpfs and mdev

Natanael Copa natanael.copa at gmail.com
Thu Feb 2 11:01:15 UTC 2012


Hi,

As you might know, Alpine Linux uses busybox and uclibc as the
foundation, you can then add as much bloat as you want. One of the
things you can do is replace mdev with udev so you get hotplugging of
disks (typically USB) and hotplugging of keyboards, mouse etc, working
in xorg.

This works pretty good. For routers, servers (our primary target) you
normally don't need udev. Some things, like things like xen needs it
though.

I have got a new challenge with udev. Since version 176 devtmpfs is
*required* in kernel[1]. As I understand this will not work very well
with mdev, our primary /dev handler.

Unfortunally, if you want/need hotplugging in xorg today you don't
have any choices.

I wonder if it would be difficult to add devtmpfs support to mdev? As
I understand, mdev will no longer need do mknod, but will only need to
set permissions and create symlinks. Maybe also remove device nodes.

I could probably look at how to do it but I will have my hands full
with other stuff the nearest week(s).

I am open to other ideas too.

Thanks!

-- 
Natanael Copa

[1] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/hotplug/udev.git;a=blob_plain;f=NEWS;hb=HEAD


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