From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 11 10:52:37 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 41B8816A421; Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:52:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) Received: from phk.freebsd.dk (phk.freebsd.dk [130.225.244.222]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EEC5C13C459; Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:52:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (unknown [192.168.61.3]) by phk.freebsd.dk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4710517382; Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:52:35 +0000 (UTC) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id l6BAqYLf056114; Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:52:34 GMT (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) To: Robert Watson From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:12:24 +0100." <20070711104247.P58526@fledge.watson.org> Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:52:34 +0000 Message-ID: <56113.1184151154@critter.freebsd.dk> Sender: phk@critter.freebsd.dk Cc: Rui Paulo , Shteryana Shopova , freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org, "Constantine A. Murenin" Subject: Re: Porting OpenBSD's sysctl hw.sensors framework to FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:52:37 -0000 In message <20070711104247.P58526@fledge.watson.org>, Robert Watson writes: >On Wed, 11 Jul 2007, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: >It seems clear that people would like all these measurements to be available, >even if not by the precise mechanism proposed. So far the specific technical >criticals have been: > >- There's such a diversity of motherboard devices and probe mechanisms that > any kernel driver would become rapidly over-burdened and needlessly > complicated. Not to mention size. Anything that sensibly can be done from userland should be done in userland. >This doesn't argue for doing nothing, just that perhaps a kernel device driver >is the wrong place. 100% agreement here. I would prefer to see the kernel drivers only offer transport and have all the MIB stuff happen in userland. In other words, I think the right way to think about this is: "Assume the existence of sensord(8), design client (sensors) and server (apps that want to know what the sensors show) APIs" Another thing to remember is that not all sensors relating to a system lives inside the system. Voltage, Fire, Temperature and other relevant sensors may need network or serial port communication instead if i2c or IPMI, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be possible to integrate it in the sensor MIB. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.