Hey everyone,

I have the latest news for vdev:

* vdev now creates symlinks for:
-- /dev/v4l/by-path
-- /dev/disk/by-partuuid
-- /dev/disk/by-partlabel

Thank you Scooby for helping me confirm this!

* vdev now sets the proper ownership and permissions for:
-- /dev/mISDNtimer
-- /dev/mwave
-- /dev/parport[0-9]
-- /dev/printer
-- /dev/ppdev
-- /dev/lp[0-9]
-- /dev/irlpt[0-9]
-- /dev/sch[0-9]
-- /dev/pktcdvd[0-9]
-- /dev/qft[0-9]
-- /dev/zqft[0-9]
-- /dev/nqft[0-9]
-- /dev/nzqft[0-9]
-- /dev/rawqft[0-9]
-- /dev/nraqft[0-9]
-- /dev/rawctl
-- /dev/aoe
-- /dev/lirc[0-9]
-- /dev/legousbtower
-- /dev/sonypi
-- /dev/mmtimer
-- /dev/sgi_*
-- /dev/z90crypt

* Didier Kryn has gotten vdevd and vdevfs to statically link and compile
with musl libc. I'm looking forward to merging his contributions :)

* the build system has been refactored to use Makefiles more appropriately:
-- every generated file gets written to a separate build/ directory
-- every generated file is created by a non-phony target (i.e. nothing
happens by side-effect)
-- global buildconf.mk for setting variables
Thanks to Didier again for the suggestion!

* the initramfs hook conditionally pulls in iproute2, lvm, dmsetup, blkid,
etc. Moreover, vdev's helpers conditionally use these programs if they are
present. This means that vdev doesn't strictly depend on them anymore,
which is good if you're not using mapped devices or logical volumes.
Thanks to Anto for the suggestion!

* the initramfs hook pulls in the correct GNU libc files now, so chown(1)
will work correctly in the initramfs. Thanks to Scooby, Isaac Dunham, Tom
H for their help!


[For Next Time]

* The next immediate objective is to package vdevd for Devuan, to make it
easier to test (in particular, easier to get a working initramfs). I'm
currently dissecting udev's packaging and reading through Isaac's mdev
scripts to see what to expect and what we can recycle. I've never packaged
something this complex before. Thanks to Scooby, Anto, Tom H, and others
for all their help on getting me this far!

* Symlinks and permissions for RAID devices (/dev/md[0-9] and friends). I
don't run a RAID myself, so I'll need to go set one up in QEMU. If someone
wants to test vdev with a RAID, let me know, and I'll try to write a helper
script to play around with sooner rather than later.

* In some distros and configurations, a separate device manager (like mdev)
can populate just enough of /dev to mount root, but not try to set up any
symlinks. Vdevd must have a way for the admin to tell it to run helper
scripts for the device even if its device node was already created
(indicating that it has been set up), so the symlinks and permissions still
get set appropriately. Thanks to Scooby for reporting this!

Thanks,
-Jude