Accessing a block-device from kernel-mode

From: Armin (Armin.Gerritsen.DELETE_at_philips.com)
Date: 01/22/04 

Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 14:45:09 +0100

Hello,

I'm developing a kernel-module (for an embedded system running Linux), which
requires to write to hard disk or similar devices. Note it is not a
harddisk-driver itself, but a driver that operates in parallel with the hard
disk driver. (I already have the driver for hard disk/etc.) That driver
needs to access the disk a low-level; That is using lba-addresses.

Because I already have the hard disk driver, I could easily access some
special functions of that driver to solve my problem. However, I want to
make my solution generic. So if the system gets a different hard disk or
ATA-storage system, I can use my solution without changing anything.

Since a hard disk driver is a block device, I wondered if it would be wise
to let my kernel-module, access the disk a block-level, which is higher in
the ranks.

Question is, how? How do you access a block device from a kernelel-module.
All the examples and documentation I could find refers to using applications
from user-space.

Regards,

Armin

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