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Bug 446648

Summary: Obsolete info in fdisk(8) man page
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Reporter: Steve Bonneville <sbonnevi>
Component: util-linuxAssignee: Karel Zak <kzak>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact: Ben Levenson <benl>
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 5.1CC: syeghiay
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-01-20 20:45:27 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Steve Bonneville 2008-05-15 14:57:13 UTC
Paragraphs 6-7 of the fdisk(8) man page currently reads:

       The device is usually one of the following:
              /dev/hda
              /dev/hdb
              /dev/sda
              /dev/sdb
       (/dev/hd[a-h]  for IDE disks, /dev/sd[a-p] for SCSI disks, /dev/ed[a-d]
       for ESDI disks, /dev/xd[ab] for XT disks).  A device name refers to the
       entire disk.

       The  partition  is  a  device name followed by a partition number.  For
       example, /dev/hda1 is the first partition on the first IDE hard disk in
       the  system.   IDE disks can have up to 63 partitions, SCSI disks up to
       15.  See also /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt.

The last line assumes, of course, that the kernel source is unpacked on the
system; reasonable in 1998 but not today in RHEL.  The "See also" here should
probably point to /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-*/Documentation/devices.txt.

These paragraphs should also be looked at in the context of Fedora 8 (and
probably 9) where the page is identical and therefore obsolete due to /dev/hd*
being unified with /dev/sd* now.

(I'd also bring up the "BUGS" section which calls fdisk a "buggy program that
does fuzzy things, avoid it if you can", which was raised as a customer
complaint some years ago but which I can't find the bug number on any more.)

Reported by a GLS customer.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
h
util-linux-2.13-0.45.el5_1.1 (RHEL 5.1)
[also util-linux-ng-2.13.1-2.fc8 (Fedora 8)]

Comment 1 RHEL Program Management 2008-06-02 19:59:20 UTC
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release.  Product Management has requested
further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential
inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed
products.  This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update
release.

Comment 11 errata-xmlrpc 2009-01-20 20:45:27 UTC
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem
described in this bug report. This report is therefore being
closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information
on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files,
please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report
if the solution does not work for you.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2009-0070.html