[Qemu-devel] Partition editing, is this a qemu / bochsbios issue?

[Jan Grant]

Running qemu 0.6.1+20050407 with bochsbios 2.1.1+20041109, under Debian 
running the 2.6.8 kernel (debian calls this 2.6.8-16) on x86 as both 
host and the on the emulated machine.

I am seeing an odd issue with parted, fdisk, etc, and anything else that 
uses the BLKRRPART ioctl to reread the partition table.

The issue is this: if I use (any) partition editor to edit the partition 
table, then primary and extended partition changes are not visible to 
the guest OS until after a "virtual" reboot. However, if I edit 
"logical" partitions (/dev/hda5 etc) within a preexisting extended 
partition, the BLKRRPART ioctl correctly picks up the changes.

There are a number of pieces to this puzzle so I'm looking for expert 
input as to whether this is an expected artifact of running under qemu.

Many thanks for any help,
jan

PS. I'd appreciate a direct CC: on any responses.


-- 
jan grant, ILRT, University of Bristol. http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/
Tel +44 (0)117 3317661   http://ioctl.org/jan/
It's a sad fact that the word "semantics" seems to have lost all meaning.