Subject: Re: Kernel configs compiled into the kernel.
To: Darren Reed <darrenr@reed.wattle.id.au>
From: Lucio de Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>
List: tech-kern
Date: 01/19/1999 13:59:26
According to Darren Reed:
> 
> One feature I've seen on FreeBSD which I think would not go missing on
> NetBSD is being able to include the kernel config in the compiled kernel.
> I'm not too sure of the cons (apart from size increase) but there should
> be some obvious pros.
> 
I think the issue has been raised here of being able to walk the kernel 
configuration and extract information at various pertinent nodes.

A lot of sins would be eliminated if we could invest the initial effort 
to make the "portal" filesystem a commonplace: we could put the sysctl 
variables in a directory, the kernel config text as well as the config 
specifications in another, and generally make the kernel innards (as 
well as applications written to exploit the facility) a lot more 
readily accessible.

But I do appreciate this is quite unorthodox, and remote from present 
needs.  Still, it would be nice to include it in a future development 
stream.

++L