Re: PATCH: report NGROUPS_MAX via a sysctl (read-only)

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

Tim Hockin <thockin@sun.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:30:28PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > >  Attached is a simple patch to expose NGROUPS_MAX via sysctl.
> > 
> > Why does userspace actually care?  You try to do an oversized setgroups(),
> > so you get an error?
> 
> I am systematically tracking down apps that use it.  glibc is almost free of
> it.  sysconf() still uses it, but as long as the value compiled into glibc
> as NGROUPS_MAX is less-than-or-equal-to the current kernel's idea, it meets
> POSIX, right?  If any one goes into their kernel source and lowers
> NGROUPS_MAX they might break things, but I guess that isn't too big of a
> worry.  Some apps are still assuming that the value they get from sysconf()
> is the absolute max number of groups.  Anyone with libc compiled against an
> older kernel will see 32, when they could have 64k.

OK, well certainly fishing the number out of the currently-running kernel
is the one sure way of getting it right.

> > And why does NGROUPS_MAX still exist, come to that?  AFAICT the only thing
> 
> Because Linus would not let me set it to INT_MAX. Something about
> "insanity" ;)

Is 64k enough?