re: CVS commit: src/distrib/utils/sysinst

[matthew green <mrg%eterna.com.au@localhost>]

   On Tue Feb 24 2009 at 19:47:25 +1100, Daniel Carosone wrote:
   > On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 07:35:54PM +1100, matthew green wrote:
   > > /proc should stay related to processes, with the exception of
   > > whatever is "needed" for linux compat.
   
   I have yet to hear a technical argument for that.  The technical and
   pragmatic argument against it is wasting developer time, wired kernel
   memory, if-else clauses in scripts, etc. in having two separate file
   systems which do the same thing.  Like it or not, /proc is not going away.
   Creating gratuitous differences to other systems due to religious reasons
   is quite ridiculous.

i don't see how it is religious.

procfs is the process file system.  if you want it to be more
than that, you should change the name.  just because linux 
does something doesn't mean it's a good thing, and even the
linux folks have come to realise that about procfs.  see below.

there's also the fact hat procfs has had a number of security
issues over the years, and i don't recall there being one for
kernfs ever.  that's one of the reasons i don't like to mount
/proc on my servers.  i'm some what sad to learn that "the way
forward" is to use this software traditionally full of holes,
but i'm hoping that all the relevant code (for gdb) will mean
ripping out all the old code.
   
   > So.. guess where linux puts it...  :-)
   
   what an excellent example (/proc/xen vs. /kern/xen) ...
   
and in linuxland they are moving away from using /proc for many
things.  ie, they've come to realise that their abuse of /proc
is not a good thing.


afaict, their sysfs is a *much* better thing to copy, including
the way it interfaces with their bus / device / driver model.


.mrg.