[Libguestfs] [PATCH 00/10] virt-resize: add support for resizing MBR logical partitions

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 10:26:22PM +0800, Chen Hanxiao wrote:
> 
> On 04/30/2015 06:51 PM, Chen, Hanxiao wrote:
> > Hi, Rich
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Richard W.M. Jones [mailto:rjones at redhat.com]
> >> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 7:04 PM
> >> To: Chen, Hanxiao/陈 晗霄
> >> Cc: libguestfs at redhat.com
> >> Subject: Re: [Libguestfs] [PATCH 00/10] virt-resize: add support for resizing MBR
> >> logical partitions
> >>
> >> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 09:19:24AM +0000, Chen, Hanxiao wrote:
> >>> commit 6e989fd709fea37430398cbb7c01c52cd44bd1ac already did this:
> >>> we had p_mbr_p_type : partition_type in type partition.
> >>> Like what MBR/EBR did, this patchset use `partition_type`:
> >>>
> >>> /dev/sda3:
> >>> 	partition data: 3 210763776-420478975 (209715200 bytes)
> >>> 	bootable: false
> >>> 	partition ID: 0x5
> >>> 	content: extended partition
> >>> 	label: (none)
> >>> 	GUID: (none)
> >>> 	*partition type: extended*
> >>> /dev/sda5:
> >>> 	partition data: 5 211812352-222298111 (10485760 bytes)
> >>> 	bootable: false
> >>> 	partition ID: 0x83
> >>> 	content: unknown data
> >>> 	label: (none)
> >>> 	GUID: (none)
> >>> 	*partition type: logical*
> >>>
> >>> As we could only had one extended partition,
> >>> all logical partitions belong to that extended partition,
> >>> so current type partition of virt-resize can reflect logical/extended partition
> >> model.
> >>
> >> The specific problem is that the extended partition (eg /dev/sda3)
> >> contains the logical partition (/dev/sda5).  Having a flat list
> >> doesn't express that at all.
> > We had at most 4 PTE in MBR, in PTE, a partition type is on +04h, 
> > value 05h or 0fh shows it's an extended partition.
> > From extended partition's EBR, we got logical partitions.
> >
> > sda1-- sda2 -- sda3 -- sda4
> >                    ^
> >                    |
> >                   sda5 -- sda6
> >
> > I think we do not need to show this specially,
> > just use the original design:
> > logical partitions existed in extended partition, an implicit relations.
> >
> > So a flat list can do this:
> > We mark each members, then a tree view above could be rebuilt precisely
> > from plat list.
> Hi, Rich
> 
> Any comments on this?

As I said in my original email, my opinion is still that the code
would be clearer if it expressed the peculiar structure of MBR
extended/logical partitions directly in the structures.

There's really a high hurdle for these changes.  They must be:

 - easy to review

 - absolutely not break existing uses of virt-resize

We're nowhere near there at the moment.  There's no good testing,
there are no patches for review which look sound.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
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