Re: [DKIM] Re: `losetup --remove` is confusing, and misuse silently fails

Benno Schulenberg <[email protected]> Sat, 11 Oct 2025 14:47:22 +0200

Newsgroups	org.kernel.vger.util-linux
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Op 11-10-2025 om 12:16 schreef Nuno Silva:
> For all commands after this one in your message, where there was no
> output, what was the exit status?

The answer is below.

>>    # ./losetup -d -R loop4
>>    losetup: /dev/-R: detach failed: No such file or directory
>>
>> Huh?  Why does it try to interpret an option as a loop device name?
> 
> The online manual here says that -d takes one argument, so my
> understanding is that that is expected?

Agreed.  (It's just that I expected the tool to be cleverer.)

>>    # ./losetup -d loop4 -R loop4

   # echo $?
   1

So it didn't actually work.  It only works (and has exit status 0)
when having a done a plain `./losetup -d loop4` beforehand.

Seeing that four options (-d, -D, -c, -R) are more like commands,
maybe those should be made mutually exclusive?  Meaning that
losetup` should barf when more than one of them is given?


Benno

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