2008-02-13 07:27:57

by Greg KH

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Documentation about sysfs/procfs entries

On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 12:59:43AM -0500, Scott Lovenberg wrote:
> Randy Dunlap wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:08:12 +0700 Mulyadi Santosa wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hi all...
>>>
>>> Here's my idea: what if we collaborate to extend and make the kernel
>>> documentation better? I have done (slow) start by editing profile=
>>> kernel param. It's not accepted by Adrian Bunk, but at least I did it.
>>> Feedback?
>>>
>>
>> Adrian is no longer the trivial patch maintainer.
>> Did you send the patch to [email protected] ?
>>
>> Any doc additions or improvements would be appreciated.
>> I'll be glad to help get them merged...
>>
>> ---
>> ~Randy
>>
>>
> I'd love to help, but I'm a bit of a newbie; what's protocol for
> documentation updates, standard diffs?

Yes.

> How are we going to attack this thing, cleaning up and updating existing
> documentation first and then adding undocumented items, or file by file
> updating and adding in one fell swoop?

File by file.

And please place the new documentation of sysfs and procfs entries into
the framework in the Documentation/ABI/ directory tree, which is where
it belongs.

thanks,

greg k-h


2008-02-13 07:40:43

by Peter Teoh

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Documentation about sysfs/procfs entries

On 2/13/08, Greg KH <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 12:59:43AM -0500, Scott Lovenberg wrote:
> > Randy Dunlap wrote:
> >> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:08:12 +0700 Mulyadi Santosa wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Hi all...
> >>>
> >>> Here's my idea: what if we collaborate to extend and make the kernel
> >>> documentation better? I have done (slow) start by editing profile=
> >>> kernel param. It's not accepted by Adrian Bunk, but at least I did it.
> >>> Feedback?
> >>>
> >>
> >> Adrian is no longer the trivial patch maintainer.
> >> Did you send the patch to [email protected] ?
> >>
> >> Any doc additions or improvements would be appreciated.
> >> I'll be glad to help get them merged...
> >>
> >> ---
> >> ~Randy
> >>
> >>
> > I'd love to help, but I'm a bit of a newbie; what's protocol for
> > documentation updates, standard diffs?
>
> Yes.
>
> > How are we going to attack this thing, cleaning up and updating existing
> > documentation first and then adding undocumented items, or file by file
> > updating and adding in one fell swoop?
>
> File by file.
>
> And please place the new documentation of sysfs and procfs entries into
> the framework in the Documentation/ABI/ directory tree, which is where
> it belongs.
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h
>

some questions:

a. the list of parameters can presumably be extracted from existing
file via "procname" search.....not sure if it is correct (as per
attached, complete?)

b. what is the diff between /proc and /sys? in
Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt....it is mentioned that /proc
information will be published into a book...where is it? I can never
understand this.

c. in Doc/sysctl are all the explanation for /proc/sys/* .... as a
start i think we shall contribute fixing here....but according to your
email, we should fix Doc/ABI...so I supposed some migration is needed?

d. In networking/ip-sysctl.txt a lot of the explanation for the
attached procname's parameters are explained, may be we can relocate
it to ABI?

2008-02-13 08:21:25

by Greg KH

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Documentation about sysfs/procfs entries

On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 03:40:32PM +0800, Peter Teoh wrote:
> some questions:
>
> a. the list of parameters can presumably be extracted from existing
> file via "procname" search.....not sure if it is correct (as per
> attached, complete?)

I don't see anything attached :(

> b. what is the diff between /proc and /sys? in
> Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt....it is mentioned that /proc
> information will be published into a book...where is it? I can never
> understand this.

/proc is for process information originally, it grew to take lots of
other different things over the years.

/sys is a tree representation of the devices in the system, as well as a
location for a lot of other kernel specific information. The rules for
/sys are much more strict (one value per file, if the file isn't there,
the userspace program must be able to handle it, etc.)

> c. in Doc/sysctl are all the explanation for /proc/sys/* .... as a
> start i think we shall contribute fixing here....but according to your
> email, we should fix Doc/ABI...so I supposed some migration is needed?

Yes, migration of this information to the ABI/ directory would be very
good to have.

> d. In networking/ip-sysctl.txt a lot of the explanation for the
> attached procname's parameters are explained, may be we can relocate
> it to ABI?

Sounds good to me, but be sure to verify this with the networking
developers as well.

thanks,

greg k-h

2008-02-13 09:00:30

by Peter Teoh

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Documentation about sysfs/procfs entries

On 2/13/08, Greg KH <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 03:40:32PM +0800, Peter Teoh wrote:
> > some questions:
> >
> > a. the list of parameters can presumably be extracted from existing
> > file via "procname" search.....not sure if it is correct (as per
> > attached, complete?)
>
> I don't see anything attached :(
>
Apologies....

as per attached.
It is semi automatically generated. Quite verbose. I guessed this
will be the last email, after this we shall email among all
interested, with cc to Greg, Randy and Rik.


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