[PATCH] Undeprecate the sysctl system call

Cal Peake
2006-10-17T23:09:33Z

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Andrew Morton wrote:

> yes, it appears that we screwed that up, but I haven't got around to thinking about
> it yet.

Well, here's a patch that hopefully solves the mess :)

From: Cal Peake <cp@absolutedigital.net>

Undeprecate the sysctl system call and default to always include it with
the option for embedded folks to exclude it. Also, remove it's entry from
the feature removal file.

Signed-off-by: Cal Peake <cp@absolutedigital.net>

--- ./init/Kconfig~orig 2006-10-17 17:54:09.000000000 -0400
+++ ./init/Kconfig 2006-10-17 18:49:36.000000000 -0400
@@ -303,20 +303,20 @@ config UID16

config SYSCTL_SYSCALL
bool "Sysctl syscall support" if EMBEDDED
- default n
+ default y
select SYSCTL
---help---
- Enable the deprecated sysctl system call. sys_sysctl uses
- binary paths that have been found to be a major pain to maintain
- and use. The interface in /proc/sys is now the primary and what
- everyone uses.
-
- Nothing has been using the binary sysctl interface for some
- time now so nothing should break if you disable sysctl syscall
- support, and your kernel will get marginally smaller.
+ This option allows you to specify whether or not to build into
+ your kernel support for the sysctl system call. You can disable
+ this if you are building a kernel for a system with limited
+ resources (e.g. an embedded device) and your kernel image will
+ shrink by a few kilobytes.
+
+ NOTE: Disabling this option will cause a warning to be printed
+ if a program attempts to use this system call.

- Unless you have an application that uses the sys_sysctl interface
- you should probably say N here.
+ If you are sure your userspace enviroment has no need for this
+ system call you can say N here.

config KALLSYMS
bool "Load all symbols for debugging/kksymoops" if EMBEDDED
--- ./Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt~orig 2006-10-17 17:54:04.000000000 -0400
+++ ./Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt 2006-10-17 18:10:35.000000000 -0400
@@ -53,18 +53,6 @@ Who: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brtu

---------------------------

-What: sys_sysctl
-When: January 2007
-Why: The same information is available through /proc/sys and that is the
- interface user space prefers to use. And there do not appear to be
- any existing user in user space of sys_sysctl. The additional
- maintenance overhead of keeping a set of binary names gets
- in the way of doing a good job of maintaining this interface.
-
-Who: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
-
----------------------------
-
What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
When: November 2005
Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c