aoe-mkshelf(8)

💖 aoe-mkshelf — it's giving "make me some device files" 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to aoe-mkshelf(8), straight out of the System Manager's Manual ✨ she makes special device files for exactly one shelf address, and she does it with main character energy.

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✨ NAME ✨

aoe-mkshelf — create special device files for one shelf address 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

aoe-mkshelf {device-dir} {shelf-address}
env n_partitions=1 aoe-mkshelf {device-dir} {shelf-address}

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so first thing's first, and it's lowkey important: aoe-mkshelf is not needed on systems that have udev installed, and it's incompatible with aoe drivers that have the aoe_dyndevs module parameter set to 1. so if that's you, bestie, this page is not your moment 💅

but if your system is out here lacking udev and has an aoe driver that uses static minor device numbers, then aoe-mkshelf is your girl 🫶 she creates the block special files you need to actually access the AoE devices with the given shelf address.

a lil history lesson, no cap: all aoe drivers prior to aoe6-50 use static minor device numbers. versions 50 and up use dynamic minor device numbers — but only when the module parameter aoe_dyndevs=1 is set. it's giving "glow up but conditional" ✨

and if you're on static minor device numbers and your aoe driver only supports one partition per device (whole-disk partitions, bestie, the simple life), then the device files have to match that. which means you want the n_partitions environment variable described below 👇

💜 Arguments 💜

• device-dir — this should be the name of the directory where the block device files will be created. it's the lil home for your new babies 🏠
• shelf-address — this is the AoE major address, aka the shelf address, for which to create device nodes. like, for example, specifying a shelf address of 1 means the e1.* device nodes will be created in device-dir. iconic behavior honestly 🌈

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🎀 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🎀

• n_partitions — if this variable is set in the environment, it overrides the default number of partitions per aoe disk, namely 16. so yeah, the default is 16, but you can absolutely change her mind 😌

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🔥 EXAMPLE 🔥

so in this example, the root user on a host named nai creates special files for using the aoe disks in shelf 7. and then he remembers the driver doesn't have partition support 😭 so the command gets called again with n_partitions set to 1. character development fr fr.

nai:~# aoe-mkshelf /dev/etherd 7
nai:~# ls /dev/etherd/e7.* | wc -l
160
nai:~# rm /dev/etherd/e7.*
nai:~# n_partitions=1 aoe-mkshelf /dev/etherd 7
nai:~# ls /dev/etherd/e7.* | wc -l
10
nai:~#

160 files?? then 10 files?? the way that n_partitions changes everything 💀 slay.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

aoe-discover(8), aoe-interfaces(8), aoe-mkdevs(8), aoe-stat(8), aoetools(8), udev(7).

the whole friend group, together at last 🫶

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Ed L. Cashin (ecashin@coraid.com) — the legend, the blueprint, the moment ⭐

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and that's the whole page bestie!! 💖 this was aoe-mkshelf(8) from the System Manager's Manual — go forth and make those special files, you've got this 🧚✨💅