aoe-mkdevs (8) - Linux Manuals

aoe-mkdevs: create special device files for aoe driver

NAME

aoe-mkdevs - create special device files for aoe driver

SYNOPSIS

aoe-mkdevs {device-dir}
env n_partitions=1 aoe-mkdevs {device-dir}

DESCRIPTION

The aoe-mkdevs command is deprecated in favor of udev. Systems with udev do not need to use the aoe-mkdevs or aoe-mkself commands, because udev will create device nodes as needed.

Systems without udev use aoe-mkdevs to create the character special files necessary to control the aoe driver. The aoe-mkdevs command uses aoe-mkshelf to also create block special files.

The aoe drivers after version 49 support dynamic minor device numbers so that a greater number of devices can be supported. The aoe-mkdevs command is incompatible with dynamic device numbers. If your system lacks udev, and you are using an aoe driver version 50 or above, use the aoe_dyndevs=0 module option to force the aoe driver to use static device numbers.

If you are not using dynamic device numbers, and you built your aoe driver to support only one partition per device (whole-disk partitions), then the device files must match, and you should use the n_partitions environment variable described below.

Arguments

device-dir

This should be the name of the directory where the special device files will be created.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

If the n_partitions variable is set in the environment, it will override the default number of partitions per aoe disk, namely 16.

EXAMPLE

In this example, the root user on a host named nai creates special files for using the aoe disks in shelf 7. After remembering that the driver doesn't have partition support, this sysadmin gets rid of the mismatching device nodes and calls aoe-mkdevs again with n_partitions set to 1.

nai:~# rm -rf /dev/etherd 
nai:~# aoe-mkdevs /dev/etherd
nai:~# ls /dev/etherd | wc -l
1603
nai:~# rm -rf /dev/etherd
nai:~# n_partitions=1 aoe-mkdevs /dev/etherd
nai:~# ls /dev/etherd | wc -l
103

AUTHOR

Ed L. Cashin (ecashin [at] coraid.com)