From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 21 09:24:21 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4BD8116A408; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:24:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from brde@optusnet.com.au) Received: from mail16.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail16.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.132.197]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C866013C455; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:24:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from brde@optusnet.com.au) Received: from c220-239-252-11.carlnfd3.nsw.optusnet.com.au (c220-239-252-11.carlnfd3.nsw.optusnet.com.au [220.239.252.11]) by mail16.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m1L9ODLw016663 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:24:15 +1100 Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:24:13 +1100 (EST) From: Bruce Evans X-X-Sender: bde@delplex.bde.org To: Robert Watson In-Reply-To: <20080220132030.S14519@fledge.watson.org> Message-ID: <20080221202027.B29307@delplex.bde.org> References: <200802201208.m1KC8MHi009288@freefall.freebsd.org> <20080220132030.S14519@fledge.watson.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org, yuri@tsoft.com, bug-followup@freebsd.org Subject: Re: kern/120869: [procfs] 'stat' shows that all files have 0-length when they are actually not empty X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:24:21 -0000 On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Robert Watson wrote: > On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, remko@FreeBSD.org wrote: > >> After a bit of discussion, this is not something which we are going to fix. >> It is not worth the hassle. If you think this should be different, we do >> welcome patches. Thanks fo rusing FreeBSD! > > Just as two data points here: Solaris attempts to provide coherent file sizes > in /proc (at least to the extent that tried a few for objects where it is > remotely possible), and the Linux 2.6.12 kernel I have on a box locally > basically doesn't. > > My view is that it's a synthetic file system with data that varies > dynamically at runtime, and that while it wouldn't hurt to produce file size > information that's correct, it's quite a bit of work to do so and that I > wouldn't prioritize it above other, more critical things that need to happen. > We should certainly evaluate any patches that come in for possible inclusion, > assuming they don't muck up the internals of procfs too much; it's not clear > to me if they necessarily do so or not. The bug is mainly that stat() claims that the files are regular when they highly irregular (they are more like fifos). This confuses naive applications into thinking that normal access methods for regular files actually work. Bruce