loopback devices

[Robert Millan]

Hi!

I think it'd be nice if hal/gvm had support for automounting loopback devices
like it does for removable media.  Although I have no knowledge in hal
internals, I expected this would be a trivial change (like adding "loop" to a
list), so I asked in #hal IRC for advice (and found it isn't that simple).

17:52 < nyu> I'd like gnome-volume-manager to automaticaly detect and mount loopback devices like it does for removable media.  is hal the right place to
             implement this?
17:52 < davidz> nyu: I'm not sure really
17:52 < davidz> it's a feature I'd like too
17:52 < davidz> to e.g. mount an ISO
17:52 < davidz> perhaps it's better to implement this in gvfs etc.
17:53 < nyu> I looked for a list of devices in hal source but couldn't find any.  perhaps this comes from a lower level?
[...]
18:15 < kay> no, hal just doesn't handle loop dev's
18:17 < nyu> is there a hardcoded list of device names in hal?
18:17 < nyu> I couldn't find that
[...]
18:17 < kay> nyu: no, loop dev's don't have parents, that's why they are ignored
18:17 < davidz> nyu: we only handle block devices with either device symlinks in sysfs... or special handling for devicemapper block devices by looking in
                slave/ in sysfs
18:18 < davidz> nyu: perhaps it would be good to send mail to the hal list... I think some way of teaching hal about loop devices might not be bad.... but
                I'm not sure and it requires discussion and thought
18:21 < nyu> ah, I see
18:21 < nyu> I thought it was trivial, like adding "loop" to a list or something :)
18:22 < nyu> kay, davidz: do you mind me quoting these lines in my mail?
18:22 < davidz> nyu: that's fine

Any thoughts?

-- 
Robert Millan

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