Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1947101AbWKKF2V (ORCPT ); Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:28:21 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1947102AbWKKF2V (ORCPT ); Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:28:21 -0500 Received: from terminus.zytor.com ([192.83.249.54]:436 "EHLO terminus.zytor.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1947101AbWKKF2U (ORCPT ); Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:28:20 -0500 Message-ID: <45555F4F.8060600@zytor.com> Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:27:43 -0800 From: "H. Peter Anvin" User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 (X11/20061107) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Eric W. Biederman" CC: Andi Kleen , Andrew Morton , Linus Torvalds , Jesper Juhl , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, alan@redhat.com, Russell King , Jakub Jelinek , Mike Galbraith , Albert Cahalan , Bill Nottingham , Marco Roeland , Michael Kerrisk Subject: Re: [PATCH] sysctl: Undeprecate sys_sysctl (take 2) References: <9a8748490611081110m4cc62c1bp3a36aba3fc314e56@mail.gmail.com> <200611100750.10990.ak@suse.de> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1643 Lines: 40 Eric W. Biederman wrote: > Andi Kleen writes: > >> On Wednesday 08 November 2006 20:58, Eric W. Biederman wrote: >>> The basic issue is that despite have been ``deprecated'' and >>> warned about as a very bad thing in the man pages since it's >>> inception there are a few real users of sys_sysctl. >> But they only seem to use a small number of actually used with >> sysctl(2) sysctls. >> I still think just maintaining a conversion table for >> those is the right thing to do. > > I don't know. Every distinct user of the binary sysctl interface > used a different entry. So the fact that there are a small number of > programs and thus a small number of sysctls used I agree with. I do > not agree with the conclusion that we can predict the set of binary > sysctl that are in use. We do not get good enough feedback from > the user community. > > I don't have a problem with the principle of a conversion table > if it meant that we would never add any additional binary sysctls. > Okay, my opinion now... I think we should change the sysctl system so most sysctls simply aren't accessible through the binary interface. The rest of them should be documented in one place, preferrably machine-readable. However, I think having the binary sysctls available as a limited last resort is better than adding ad hoc system calls all over the place, like sys_mips. -hpa - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/