new block device major/minor ?

I want to create a new kind of network block device, similar in concept
to the network block device already assigned to block major 43. But I
want to make this different in a way that will support partitioning of
the device, if a recognized partition table is present. Since network
block device expectations for major 43 are a series of non-partition
devices, I don't think I should re-use that major number (except perhaps
for cases of non-partitioned devices).

So that begs the question if I should try to get a new major allocated
at some time if this new driver works out. But I thought of this other
possibility. Pluggable devices like USB or Firewire disks simply add on
to devices in block majors 8, 65-71, and 128-135, and these already have
partition support. What if I were to make a network device that just
"plug in" to the SCSI device space like USB and Firewire do (but in this
case activated by an appropriate syscall, probably ioctl)? This sure
seems like it could simplify things by not having to create new device
number space (I think 256 SCSI subsystem devices should suffice for most
users).

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / spamtrap-2007-03-30-2323@xxxxxxxx |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|
.

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