Open Carefully -- Contents Under Pressure writes:
> We don't seem to have anything that absolutely relies on procfs or
> kernfs.
[...]
> kernfs just makes information more readily available via 'files' as
> opposed to groveling in the kernel for things like boottime, loadav
> and the like.

There is something kernfs lets you do that groveling the kernel
doesn't -- it lets you get information out without the kernel symbol
table being available. This has proven critical for certain
applications, such as during installs.

Maybe what we need is a system call that lets you ask the kernel
"where is the start of the foobar structure", so we don't always need
to have the kernel symbol table around to do such stuff. sysctl() is
the wrong solution because it won't work on kernel core dumps, whereas
a small library routine could wrap both a system call version of
"where is the X structure" and a grovel-the-dead-kernel's-image
version thereof.

Perry