From 2b2af54a5bb6f7e80ccf78f20084b93c398c3a8b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Kay Sievers Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:23:42 +0200 Subject: Driver Core: devtmpfs - kernel-maintained tmpfs-based /dev Devtmpfs lets the kernel create a tmpfs instance called devtmpfs very early at kernel initialization, before any driver-core device is registered. Every device with a major/minor will provide a device node in devtmpfs. Devtmpfs can be changed and altered by userspace at any time, and in any way needed - just like today's udev-mounted tmpfs. Unmodified udev versions will run just fine on top of it, and will recognize an already existing kernel-created device node and use it. The default node permissions are root:root 0600. Proper permissions and user/group ownership, meaningful symlinks, all other policy still needs to be applied by userspace. If a node is created by devtmps, devtmpfs will remove the device node when the device goes away. If the device node was created by userspace, or the devtmpfs created node was replaced by userspace, it will no longer be removed by devtmpfs. If it is requested to auto-mount it, it makes init=/bin/sh work without any further userspace support. /dev will be fully populated and dynamic, and always reflect the current device state of the kernel. With the commonly used dynamic device numbers, it solves the problem where static devices nodes may point to the wrong devices. It is intended to make the initial bootup logic simpler and more robust, by de-coupling the creation of the inital environment, to reliably run userspace processes, from a complex userspace bootstrap logic to provide a working /dev. Signed-off-by: Kay Sievers Signed-off-by: Jan Blunck Tested-By: Harald Hoyer Tested-By: Scott James Remnant Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman --- drivers/base/Kconfig | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+) (limited to 'drivers/base/Kconfig') diff --git a/drivers/base/Kconfig b/drivers/base/Kconfig index 8f006f96ff53..ee377270beb9 100644 --- a/drivers/base/Kconfig +++ b/drivers/base/Kconfig @@ -8,6 +8,31 @@ config UEVENT_HELPER_PATH Path to uevent helper program forked by the kernel for every uevent. +config DEVTMPFS + bool "Create a kernel maintained /dev tmpfs (EXPERIMENTAL)" + depends on HOTPLUG && SHMEM && TMPFS + help + This creates a tmpfs filesystem, and mounts it at bootup + and mounts it at /dev. The kernel driver core creates device + nodes for all registered devices in that filesystem. All device + nodes are owned by root and have the default mode of 0600. + Userspace can add and delete the nodes as needed. This is + intended to simplify bootup, and make it possible to delay + the initial coldplug at bootup done by udev in userspace. + It should also provide a simpler way for rescue systems + to bring up a kernel with dynamic major/minor numbers. + Meaningful symlinks, permissions and device ownership must + still be handled by userspace. + If unsure, say N here. + +config DEVTMPFS_MOUNT + bool "Automount devtmpfs at /dev" + depends on DEVTMPFS + help + This will mount devtmpfs at /dev if the kernel mounts the root + filesystem. It will not affect initramfs based mounting. + If unsure, say N here. + config STANDALONE bool "Select only drivers that don't need compile-time external firmware" if EXPERIMENTAL default y -- cgit v1.2.2