Re: [PATCH] Fix mmap_kmem (was: [question] What's the difference between /dev/kmem and /dev/mem)

Linus Torvalds
2005-08-12T16:35:13Z

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>
> Found the problem. It is a bug with mmap_kmem. The order of checks is
> wrong, so here's the patch. Attached is a little program that reads the
> System map looking for the variable modprobe_path. If it finds it, then
> it opens /dev/kmem for read only and mmaping it to read the contents of
> modprobe_path.

I'm actually more inclined to try to deprecate /dev/kmem.. I don't think
anybody has ever really used it except for some rootkits. It only exists
in the first place because it's historical.

We do need to support /dev/mem for X, but even that might go away some
day.

So I'd be perfectly happy to fix this, but I'd be even happier if we made
the whole kmem thing a config variable (maybe even default it to "off").

Linus