Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[erik quanstrom]

On Sun Nov 22 05:01:24 EST 2009, nemo@lsub.org wrote:
> Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
> You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
> partition it.
>

usb/disk should return "bad process or channel control request"
rather than "permission denied".

with contrib quanstro/sd, one can use sdloop(3).
there are two things i like about sdloop
it saves one round-trip to user space over partfs.
since it's just a driver, i'm pretty sure one could
just drop in in a standard kernel.

- erik

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On 26 Nov 2009, at 1:51 pm, Francisco J Ballesteros wrote:

> usb/disk knows how to handle units.
> Some devices provide their units to handle parts.
>
> Regarding partitions, usb/disk does not know how to
> handle partitions. And it's likely it will never do.
> The plan is to use a different driver that knows how
> to handle partitions and use that driver for everything.
> But it's still ongoing.

ahh, ok, that makes sense.

>
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Ethan Grammatikidis
> <eekee57@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>>>>> Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
>>>>>> You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
>>>>>> partition it.
>>>>
>>>> Erm, every USB thumb drive, SD card, or CF card I've used has had a
>>>> partition table. Memories of mounting the things under Windows are
>>>> too distant to be useful, but OS X not only expects a partition
>>>> table, I don't think it can 'prepare' a USB disk without one. Linux
>>>> automounters expect a partition table too, whether the kernel-based
>>>> automounter or whatever Gnome uses.
>>>>
>>>> Am I off target by a country mile here?
>>>
>>> usb/disk was intended, not "Usb disks".  the filesystem usb/disk
>>> presents
>>> does not do partitions.  of course the disk drive itself doesn't
>>> know or
>>> care
>>> it's been partitioned.
>>
>> Ah, I wondered if it might be that, but I had to check. So, no fixing
>> usb/disk?
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> Ah, I wondered if it might be that, but I had to check. So, no fixing
> usb/disk?

i've been using the sdloop driver.

- erik

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

usb/disk knows how to handle units.
Some devices provide their units to handle parts.

Regarding partitions, usb/disk does not know how to
handle partitions. And it's likely it will never do.
The plan is to use a different driver that knows how
to handle partitions and use that driver for everything.
But it's still ongoing.

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Ethan Grammatikidis
<eekee57@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>>>> Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
>>>>> You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
>>>>> partition it.
>>>
>>> Erm, every USB thumb drive, SD card, or CF card I've used has had a
>>> partition table. Memories of mounting the things under Windows are
>>> too distant to be useful, but OS X not only expects a partition
>>> table, I don't think it can 'prepare' a USB disk without one. Linux
>>> automounters expect a partition table too, whether the kernel-based
>>> automounter or whatever Gnome uses.
>>>
>>> Am I off target by a country mile here?
>>
>> usb/disk was intended, not "Usb disks".  the filesystem usb/disk presents
>> does not do partitions.  of course the disk drive itself doesn't know or
>> care
>> it's been partitioned.
>
> Ah, I wondered if it might be that, but I had to check. So, no fixing
> usb/disk?
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

>>>> Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
>>>> You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
>>>> partition it.
>>
>> Erm, every USB thumb drive, SD card, or CF card I've used has had a
>> partition table. Memories of mounting the things under Windows are
>> too distant to be useful, but OS X not only expects a partition
>> table, I don't think it can 'prepare' a USB disk without one. Linux
>> automounters expect a partition table too, whether the kernel-based
>> automounter or whatever Gnome uses.
>>
>> Am I off target by a country mile here?
>
> usb/disk was intended, not "Usb disks".  the filesystem usb/disk
> presents
> does not do partitions.  of course the disk drive itself doesn't
> know or care
> it's been partitioned.

Ah, I wondered if it might be that, but I had to check. So, no fixing
usb/disk?

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> >> Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
> >> You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
> >> partition it.
>
> Erm, every USB thumb drive, SD card, or CF card I've used has had a
> partition table. Memories of mounting the things under Windows are
> too distant to be useful, but OS X not only expects a partition
> table, I don't think it can 'prepare' a USB disk without one. Linux
> automounters expect a partition table too, whether the kernel-based
> automounter or whatever Gnome uses.
>
> Am I off target by a country mile here?

usb/disk was intended, not "Usb disks".  the filesystem usb/disk presents
does not do partitions.  of course the disk drive itself doesn't know or care
it's been partitioned.

- erik

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

>> Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
>> You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
>> partition it.

Erm, every USB thumb drive, SD card, or CF card I've used has had a
partition table. Memories of mounting the things under Windows are
too distant to be useful, but OS X not only expects a partition
table, I don't think it can 'prepare' a USB disk without one. Linux
automounters expect a partition table too, whether the kernel-based
automounter or whatever Gnome uses.

Am I off target by a country mile here?

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Iruata Souza]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 3:57 PM, Tim Newsham <newsham@lava.net> wrote:
>> Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
>> You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
>> partition it.
>
> Hmm..  Here is what I would like to do.  I would like to put
> a FAT32 and a fossil (or kfs) filesystem on a usb flash drive
> and use the FAT32 for botting and the fossil as my root
> filesystem.
>
> Lets say that the usb disk did support partitioning, or I used
> the entire usb disk as a single filesystem, is there any
> way to specify to mount /srv/usb's sdU4.0/data (or whatever name)
> as root?  Or would I have to hack a mount of /srv/usb into
> /sys/src/9/boot and specify something like "local!/dev/sdU4.0/data"?
>
> If I use something like partfs, I would have to hack this
> into the /sys/src/9/boot stuff, right?

with my changes [1] to boot(8), you could just use !rc as the root and
you'd be dropped to rc(1) and could try your setup without having to
change the actual sources.

iru

[1] http://src.oitobits.net/9null
>
> Is there any long term desire to allow booting off of USB drives?
>
> Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | thenewsh.blogspot.com
>
>

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Tim Newsham]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 751 bytes --]

> I'm talking to nemo about what we should do to partition USB devices.

fwiw, I'm using the attached patch to /sys/src/9/pc/boot
to mount my usb drive as root partition, now.
The rootspec I'm using is "local!/dev/sdXX/fossil".
It relies on adding yet more binaries to the ramdisk: partfs,
fdisk and prep.  It calls partfs to get a partitionable device,
then runs fdisk and prep to read the existing partitions and
write them back, forcing partfs to see them.  Finally I had
to patch the "local" connect method to not replace the
existing /dev, since thats where /dev/sdXX appears.

oh yah, my simple hack just guesses two possible locations
for the USB disk to appear...

Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | thenewsh.blogspot.com

[-- Attachment #2: Type: APPLICATION/x-patch, Size: 890 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[erik quanstrom]

> > i haven't written a sdorion 9load driver, so i cheat in
> > a similar way.  replace sda0 with the appropriate.
>
> I'm not using 9load, anyway.  This machine has OFW and I'm
> using a small forth script in place of 9load.

the same cheat would work.  the plan 9 kernel doesn't
partition disks.  it parses the variables at CONFADDR
to find partitions.  your forth script could just add
the appropriate configuration like 9load does.

- erik

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Tim Newsham]

> i haven't written a sdorion 9load driver, so i cheat in
> a similar way.  replace sda0 with the appropriate.

I'm not using 9load, anyway.  This machine has OFW and I'm
using a small forth script in place of 9load.

> - erik

Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | thenewsh.blogspot.com

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[geoff]

There are two distinct issues: booting from USB devices and
partitioning USB devices.  I believe that if you follow the directions
at the end of prep(8), you have a modern BIOS, and it isn't too buggy,
you should be able to boot from a FAT file system on a USB device
(that is, load a kernel from it).  Depending upon your BIOS's
treatment of USB boot devices, you may need to use 9load's bios0
device rather than, say, sdC0, and that in turn requires *nobiosload
to not be defined in plan9.ini.

I'm talking to nemo about what we should do to partition USB devices.

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[erik quanstrom]

i think that with sdloop(3) it's possible to get a drive
partitioned on bootup.  the one gnarly trick you'd need
is to put the partitions manually in your plan9.ini unless
9load sees the device through bios.

i haven't written a sdorion 9load driver, so i cheat in
a similar way.  replace sda0 with the appropriate.

;  cat `{pxeof chula} | grep 'part|loop'
sda0part=plan9 63 976752000/9fat 63 20543/nvram 20543 20544
loopdev=l!/usr/bootes/data!1024

- erik

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Tim Newsham]

> Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
> You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
> partition it.

Hmm..  Here is what I would like to do.  I would like to put
a FAT32 and a fossil (or kfs) filesystem on a usb flash drive
and use the FAT32 for botting and the fossil as my root
filesystem.

Lets say that the usb disk did support partitioning, or I used
the entire usb disk as a single filesystem, is there any
way to specify to mount /srv/usb's sdU4.0/data (or whatever name)
as root?  Or would I have to hack a mount of /srv/usb into
/sys/src/9/boot and specify something like "local!/dev/sdU4.0/data"?

If I use something like partfs, I would have to hack this
into the /sys/src/9/boot stuff, right?

Is there any long term desire to allow booting off of USB drives?

Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | thenewsh.blogspot.com

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

I don't get timeouts here.
can you check that sw built from
sources one month old do work and
that sw built from current ones do not?
(both kernel and user code for USB).

if you can tell me an interval when
the thing broke for your devices I
can try to guess why and do
something.

On 22/11/2009, at 13:16, lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:

>> this is in vmware, so its possible vmware is acting up (it happens
>> at times)... is anyone else using thumb drives with current
>> plan9 sources successfully?
>
> Do you get a timeout shortly after you plug the device in and usbd
> shows it as detected? I use "usbdebug" in plan9.ini, so I may be
> getting more diagnostics than you do, but this seems to be the general
> effect from about a month ago, at least on the various bits of
> hardware I have around here. I haven't tried VMware of late.
>
> ++L
>
>
> [/mail/box/nemo/msgs/200911/1515]

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

Usb disks don't know how to handle partitions.
You have to use partfs IIRC or some other tool to
partition it.

Regarding the problem with current sources, it's weird.
What do you see in #u/usb/ctl when you plug your
disk into?
What does usbd say when you run it with debug enabled?
Is there any message in the console?



On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 7:01 AM, Tim Newsham <newsham@lava.net> wrote:
>> I'm trying to partition a usb thumb drive in plan9:
>>
>>  % disk/fdisk -baw /dev/sdU4.0/data
>>  adding part failed: plan9: permission denied
>>  ?warning: partitions could not be updated in devsd
>>
>> I get similar issues when trying to use prep.  If I rerun
>> fdisk or prep it seems to read the previously configured
>> data back, and other systems (ie. winxp) see the partitions
>> I edited in plan9, but my /dev/sdU4.0 directory does not
>> get "plan9" or other partition files (just ctl, data, raw).
>> What gives?
>
> it occurred to me that I am using a slightly old dist and
> usb has churned a bit, so I did a pull, then rebuilt my kernel,
> installed it and rebooted using it..  and now it seems worse
>  - when I plug in device it no longer prints "usb/disk..."
>    or whatever it used to print
>  - when I mount /srv/usb I only see usbctl, no sd*
>
> this is in vmware, so its possible vmware is acting up (it happens
> at times)...  is anyone else using thumb drives with current
> plan9 sources successfully?
>
> Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | thenewsh.blogspot.com
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[lucio]

> this is in vmware, so its possible vmware is acting up (it happens
> at times)...  is anyone else using thumb drives with current
> plan9 sources successfully?

Do you get a timeout shortly after you plug the device in and usbd
shows it as detected?  I use "usbdebug" in plan9.ini, so I may be
getting more diagnostics than you do, but this seems to be the general
effect from about a month ago, at least on the various bits of
hardware I have around here.  I haven't tried VMware of late.

++L

Re: [9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Tim Newsham]

> I'm trying to partition a usb thumb drive in plan9:
>
>   % disk/fdisk -baw /dev/sdU4.0/data
>   adding part failed: plan9: permission denied
>   ?warning: partitions could not be updated in devsd
>
> I get similar issues when trying to use prep.  If I rerun
> fdisk or prep it seems to read the previously configured
> data back, and other systems (ie. winxp) see the partitions
> I edited in plan9, but my /dev/sdU4.0 directory does not
> get "plan9" or other partition files (just ctl, data, raw).
> What gives?

it occurred to me that I am using a slightly old dist and
usb has churned a bit, so I did a pull, then rebuilt my kernel,
installed it and rebooted using it..  and now it seems worse
   - when I plug in device it no longer prints "usb/disk..."
     or whatever it used to print
   - when I mount /srv/usb I only see usbctl, no sd*

this is in vmware, so its possible vmware is acting up (it happens
at times)...  is anyone else using thumb drives with current
plan9 sources successfully?

Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | thenewsh.blogspot.com

[9fans] usb disks in plan9

[Tim Newsham]

I'm trying to partition a usb thumb drive in plan9:

    % disk/fdisk -baw /dev/sdU4.0/data
    adding part failed: plan9: permission denied
    ?warning: partitions could not be updated in devsd

I get similar issues when trying to use prep.  If I rerun
fdisk or prep it seems to read the previously configured
data back, and other systems (ie. winxp) see the partitions
I edited in plan9, but my /dev/sdU4.0 directory does not
get "plan9" or other partition files (just ctl, data, raw).
What gives?

Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | thenewsh.blogspot.com