[OpenIndiana-discuss] Recreate /dev/null

[James Carlson]

On 04/25/13 09:24, Laurent Blume wrote:
> On 25/04/13 14:53, James Carlson wrote:
> <snip>
>> Unfortunately, that's where my knowledge of the system (based on my
>> years in PSARC) ends.  I don't know how to repair damage like you're
>> describing.  I just know that the people telling you to "rm" these fake
>> files or run mknod are misinformed.  That'll never work.
> 
> That particular /dev/null problem was actually discussed recently on
> IRC. Also, you can easily trigger kernel panics when tinkering with
> stuff there, that will only make things worse, and the system
> unbootable. Applies to S11.1 and Illumos-based distros.
> 
> From the feedback I got from people @oracle and @illumos, the bug has
> been known for years, but there is no practical solution other than
> going back to a known good BE. The new /dev is very mysterious, and its
> internals half-baked.

That was part of the reason why I abstained on that case.  The goals
were lofty -- getting rid of the abominable reconfiguration reboot and
useless need of devfsadm -C scrubbing -- but the risks were high and
history very deep.

I can't say I've ever seen /dev/null go missing, but I agree that
reverting to a working BE is a Very Good Idea.

-- 
James Carlson         42.703N 71.076W         <carlsonj at workingcode.com>