[Ltib] R/O root filesystem prevents the use of "mknod"

[Robert P. J. Day]

  i haven't read far enough to know if this is an ltib limitation but,
for the first time yesterday, we took our nicely-functioning
NFS-mounted root filesystem, flashed it, rebooted and ... uh oh.

  this was the first time we added new functionality that consisted of
loading a kernel driver and adding the corresponding special device
file with "mknod", which failed when installed in flash since /dev is
part of the R/O root filesystem and therefore "mknod" won't work.

  we got around it with the hacky solution of adding the device files
ahead of time in device_table.txt, but that requires hardcoding the
major device numbers, which we're trying to avoid.  it's a quick fix,
but not suitable for a long term solution.

  we can't be the only folks who have run across this.  what's the
normal approach for this?  thanks.

rday
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Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry:
    Have classroom, will lecture.

http://crashcourse.ca                          Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
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