[OpenBIOS] Decoding Solaris/SunOS disk identifiers?

[Tarl Neustaedter]

On 2013-Aug-5 13:25 , Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm working on fixing up a regression on SPARC32 and I'm trying to 
> understand the format of the SunOS disk identifiers in the form of 
> sd(w,x,y):z in order to correct missing fields for romvec.
>
> The comments in OpenBIOS suggest the following:
>
> /* Generate the "oldpath"
>    FIXME: hardcoding this looks almost definitely wrong.
>    With sd(0,2,0):b we get to see the solaris kernel though */
>
> and
>
> /* Controller currently always 0 */
>
> Am I right to assume the following mappings given a disk identifier in 
> the form of sd(w,x,y):z:
>
> w = controller = always 0 (or maybe my-unit phys.lo?)
> x = unit (equivalent of my-unit phys.hi)
> y = LUN (equivalent of my-address)
> z = partition identifier (equivalent of my-args)
>
> Any pointers gratefully received :) 

I"m a little rusty on this, haven't done SunOS 4.1.3 since 1993...

However, I believe the mapping of sd(w,x,y):z correlates directly with 
the Solaris 2.x and later c0t0d0s0 mapping. If so, the fields (in 
Solaris speak) are Controller, Target, Device(lun), Slice.

The controller number is a pure solaris construct, it's the incremental 
number of SCSI controller accumulated since the OS was installed. That 
is, if you have only one SCSI controller, it will be controller number 
0. If you have two controllers, the first one it saw the first time is 
controller number zero, and the second one will be controller number 1. 
If you remove one of your controllers (or move it into a different 
slot), the new location will get controller number 2. Yes, this is 
understood as an awful method of tracking device instances, and has 
numerous failings, but we never have managed to move past it.

The Target will be my-unit phys.hi.
The Lun will be my-unit phys.lo
The partition/slice number will be based on how the disk was labeled. 
Slices are named with letters in OBP-land, the first slice being "a". If 
it's UFS, slice "c" is the slice which encompasses the whole disk - 
usually *not* what you want to boot from. It's normally called "backup".

In HSFS (CD-rom filesystem), partitions are named the same, but 
partition "c" isn't special - its just another partition. Back in SunOS 
days, I recall the boot partition of CDs was "f". These days, Solaris 
disks are produced with all six partitions pointing to the same disk 
blocks so we tend to boot from partition ":a".