From owner-freebsd-current Mon Jul 13 15:28:56 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA23601 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:28:56 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from tarsier.ca.sandia.gov (tarsier.ca.sandia.gov [146.246.246.124]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA23593 for ; Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:28:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from cc@tarsier.ca.sandia.gov) Received: from tarsier.ca.sandia.gov (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by tarsier.ca.sandia.gov (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA16266; Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:27:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from cc@tarsier.ca.sandia.gov) Message-Id: <199807132227.PAA16266@tarsier.ca.sandia.gov> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: Matthew Patton cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: living without PROCFS In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 12 Jul 1998 17:48:20 EDT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:27:26 -0700 From: "Chris Csanady" Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >Is there any way to eliminate the use of procfs from -current? I discovered >what happens when you leave it out of the kernel config file. Or is /proc a >really useful device that is for now and forevermore "standard"? It used to >be, that there existed all sorts of security problems with PROCFS. Notably >on slowaris. Well without procfs, you are stuck with groveling through kmem. Kmem is a terrible interface for this type of thing, as it requires a recompile of many utilites when the kernel structures change. It is arguable much more dangerous as well, since it requires access to all of kernel memory. Procfs (and the like) provide a much cleaner interface, and will probably stick around for a good long time. If anything, the use of kmem for this type of thing should go away altogether. Chris To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message