Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 09:37:13 -0800 From: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> To: Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net> Cc: "\[LoN\]Kamikaze" <LoN_Kamikaze@gmx.de>, freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: devfs doesn't set access rights Message-ID: <20051213173714.C15515D07@ptavv.es.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 13 Dec 2005 08:49:47 PST." <20051213164947.GA17705@odin.ac.hmc.edu>
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> Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 08:49:47 -0800 > From: Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net> > Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org > > On Tue, Dec 13, 2005 at 05:37:09PM +0100, [LoN]Kamikaze wrote: > > On my FreeBSD 6-stable (the last build is less then 24hours ago) my > > devfs doesn't apply permissions set in /etc/devfs.conf when I attach new > > devices. I have to call: > > /etc/rc.d/devfs restart > > manually for the settings to be applied. This is rather uncomfortable in > > some cases (especially with my PDA). > > > > I don't know weather this is the normal behaviour, anyway if it is, > > shouldn't devfs be restarted automatically as soon as external devices > > (usb, firewire, ir) are attached? > > This is normal. devfs.conf is for boot only, you need devfs.rules for > runtime. Unfortunatly, the documentation of this fact and the > docuementation of devfs.rules sucks. Brooks, You are being entirely too kind. The documentation for the practical use of devfs at all sucks! Nothing I could find in the handbook, either. It's a classic case of documentation written by programmers in that the author can't look at his software from the standpoint of someone who does not know anything about it. Good documentation really needs to be written by someone sitting "on the outside" of the development process. But this is a huge problem for commercial applications where they actually hire writers, let alone for a volunteer project. I thought that the devfs.rules page was pretty helpful, but neither the devfs(8) nor the devfs(5) man pages mention either devfs.conf or devfs.rules in "SEE ALSO" (although devfs.rules is mentioned in "FILES"). No indication of how to use it or that there is actually a man page for it. No mention of devfs.conf at all. devfs(5) provides no clue at all that devfs does this sort of thing, either. While much of the contents of devfs.rules made little sense to me, it was enough for me to do what I was trying to do and it works fine. I also had to read /etc/rc.d/devfs in order to get it right as the comments in /etc/defaults/rc.conf are wrong and/or incomplete. But the real problem is finding the man page at all. Guess I'll try putting something together. Other than putting it in a PR, should I do anything else with it? -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634
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