OpenRiot v7.9.19 — The One That Finally Frees the Drive

“You can encrypt it. You can mount it. You can unmount it. But can you FREE it?” — The OpenRiot Crew, discovering that bioctl -d takes the volume name, not the chunk name, after 17 failed attempts

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Release Overview

v7.9.19 makes the Disk Manager actually usable for encrypted USB drives. Mount, umount, format, and encrypt now work end-to- end without hanging, crashing, or leaving stale softraid volumes that block subsequent operations.

The big fix: detachSoftraidChunk() — a dmesg-powered fallback that scans for virtual devices at the softraid bus and tries bioctl -d on each non-root one. Previous code tried bioctl -d sd2a and bioctl -d sd2, but bioctl -d needs the volume name (sd3), not the chunk name. So the volume never got detached, and re-encrypting failed with “chunk already in use”.

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The Passthrough Odyssey

The passphrase handling went through four iterations:

Iteration	Method	Result
1	cmd.Stdin = passphrase + "\n"	Hung on /dev/tty
2	-P passphrase flag	“bioctl: invalid option – P”
3	-p /tmp/file (user-owned)	“Must be owned by root”
4	`doas sh -c ‘printf… > /tmp/file	Works — root-owned with
	&& chmod 600’`	chmod 600

The correct approach: write the passphrase TWICE (entry + confirmation for new volumes, once for unlock) to a temp file via doas sh -c 'printf...' so the file is root-owned, then use bioctl -c C -p passfile.

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The Streaming Failure

The encrypt/mount/umount commands went through three architectural iterations:

Iteration	Pattern	Failure mode
1	Synchronous (original)	Blocked TUI, no progress
2	Goroutine + channel	Bubble Tea never re-read
3	Goroutine + stored chan	Value receiver lost ref
4	Synchronous + log builder	Reliable, simple, correct

The final approach: a single synchronous func() tea.Msg that runs ALL steps sequentially, builds a log string, and returns a single resultMsg. If any step fails, the error includes the log up to that point. On success, the result screen shows the full operation log.

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The mount/umount Rework

Mount now handles three cases correctly:

Device type	Behavior
Physical chunk with RAID	bioctl -c C -p to unlock,
(sd2)	then mount virtual device
Virtual device, attached	Mount /dev/sdXa directly
(sd3)
Regular partition	Mount /dev/sdXa directly

Umount detaches the softraid volume after unmounting. Format and Encrypt detach any existing volume before starting.

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Other Fixes

• findRaidDevice for virtual devices (sd3): falls through to direct mount when no softraid mapping exists
• guardDrive blocks internal chunks (sd0 NVMe) but allows removable chunks (sd2 USB) for format/mount/encrypt
• Bus type ([NVMe], [USB], [CRYPTO]) and model name shown in drive list so users know what they’re touching
• i3 floating rule added for openriot_disk window class
• All doas calls use -n (non-interactive) to prevent password prompts from hanging the TUI

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🧾 Files Changed

File	Change
source/disk/update.go	Rewrote mountCmd, encryptCmd,
	umountCmd, formatCmd as sync log-
	builders. Added detachSoftraidChunk
	with dmesg fallback. Passphrase via
	temp file + chmod 600. Mount fallback
	for virtual devices.
source/disk/backend.go	guardDrive allows removable chunks.
	BusType, ModelName fields on Drive.
source/disk/view.go	Bus type + model name display.
	[CHUNK] → [SOFTRAID] for humans.
source/disk/model.go	stateConfirmPassword for encrypt
	passphrase confirmation.
source/disk/filter.go	Show all drives, selection-time
	guards instead of exclusion.
source/disk/export_test.go	NEW — test bridges
source/disk/diskintegration_test.go	NEW — system test
config/i3/config	openriot_disk floating rule
config/rofi/apps.txt	openriot_disk window class
docs/v7.9.18-Release-Notes.md	NEW — initial Disk Man.

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🗣️ Final Words

“bioctl -d needs the volume name. Not the chunk name. Not the partition name. Not your hopes and dreams. The volume name.” — The OpenRiot Crew, after six hours of “chunk already in use”