Re: [PATCH] 2.5 PROPOSAL: Replacement for current /proc of shit.

Martin Dalecki
2001-11-02T11:46:56Z

Alexander Viro wrote:
>
> On Fri, 2 Nov 2001, Rusty Russell wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 01 Nov 2001 05:42:36 -0500
> > Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Is this designed to replace sysctl?
> >
> > Well, I'd suggest replacing *all* the non-process stuff in /proc. Yes.
>
> Aha. Like, say it, /proc/kcore. Or /proc/mounts, yodda, yodda.
>
> Noble idea, but there is a little problem: random massive userland
> breakage. E.g. changing /proc/mounts is going to hit getmntent(3), etc.
>
> If you are willing to audit all userland code - you are welcome.
> But keep in mind that standard policy is to keep obsolete API for at least
> one stable branch with warnings and remove it in the next one. So we are
> talking about 2.8 here. BTW, I'm less than sure that your variant is free
> of rmmod races, but that's a separate story...

Bull shit. Standard policy is currently to keep crude old
interfaces until no end of time. Here are some examples:

/proc/meminfo
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 196005888 60133376 135872512 0 3280896 31088640
Swap: 410255360 0 410255360
MemTotal: 191412 kB
MemFree: 132688 kB
MemShared: 0 kB
Buffers: 3204 kB

The first lines could have gone 2 years ago.

/proc/ksyms - this is duplicating a system call (and making stuff easier
for intrusors)

/proc/modules - same as /proc/ksysms - entierly unneccessary and
obsolete,
since 3 years!

And so on and so on...