tree 11c824363b8ea789ccb3c6f3b38320bcf79b3aa4
parent 22a9189fd073db3d03a4cf8b8c098aa207602de1
author Laurent Vivier <Laurent.Vivier@bull.net> 1206529913 +0100
committer Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com> 1208764208 +0200

loop: manage partitions in disk image

This patch allows to use loop device with partitionned disk image.

Original behavior of loop is not modified.

A new parameter is introduced to define how many partition we want to be
able to manage per loop device. This parameter is "max_part".

For instance, to manage 63 partitions / loop device, we will do:
# modprobe loop max_part=63
# ls -l /dev/loop?*
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7,   0 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7,  64 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 128 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 192 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 256 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop4
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 320 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop5
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 384 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop6
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 448 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop7

And to attach a raw partitionned disk image, the original losetup is used:

# losetup -f etch.img
# ls -l /dev/loop?*
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7,   0 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7,   1 2008-03-05 14:57 /dev/loop0p1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7,   2 2008-03-05 14:57 /dev/loop0p2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7,   5 2008-03-05 14:57 /dev/loop0p5
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7,  64 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 128 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 192 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 256 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop4
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 320 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop5
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 384 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop6
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 7, 448 2008-03-05 14:55 /dev/loop7
# mount /dev/loop0p1 /mnt
# ls /mnt
bench  cdrom  home        lib         mnt   root     srv  usr
bin    dev    initrd      lost+found  opt   sbin     sys  var
boot   etc    initrd.img  media       proc  selinux  tmp  vmlinuz
# umount /mnt
# losetup -d /dev/loop0

Of course, the same behavior can be done using kpartx on a loop device,
but modifying loop avoids to stack several layers of block device (loop +
device mapper), this is a very light modification (40% of modifications
are to manage the new parameter).

Signed-off-by: Laurent Vivier <Laurent.Vivier@bull.net>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>