Disk partitioning -- some thoughts

[dave at murphy.UUCP]

Summary: Special partitions for bad-block areas and partitioning info, etc.
Line eater: enabled

A couple of ideas for improving the disk-partitioning scheme: in addition to
the regular data partitions, why not have a partition which would consist
of the reserved area at the beginning of the disk where the partition table
(and maybe the first-level bootstrap)?  This would allow a user-level program
to be written while could be used to alter the partitioning of disks
(unmounted, of course) while the system runs.  We have some machines here
on which downtime allowed for such things is scarce, and it would be nice
to be able to do this function, newfs each of the new partitions, and then
bring the disk online while other people are working -- especially when
formatting new packs for removable disks.  In addition, another special
partition could include the bad-block remapping area, although I'm not sure
why anyone would need this.  I do agree that none of the standard a-h
partitions should include reserved areas like partition tables or
alternate cylinders for remapping.

Also, in regard to the partition-table scheme that Chris Torek is working
on: I can think of one thing that would be nice to have in a partition
table that I haven't seen in any implementation yet.  This is a flag bit
that indicates whether or not a particular partition is a swap partition.
This way, the system could search for swap partitions at boot time, instead
of having it configured in statically.  Also, the swapon system call could
check the bit and refuse to start swapping/paging on a partition if the
bit isn't set; this would help eliminate accidents where a data partition
is accidentally used for swap, particularly on removable packs.
---
It's been said by many a wise philosopher that when you die and your soul
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Dave Cornutt, Gould Computer Systems, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
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