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Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 20:10:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Ricky Beam <jfbeam@bluetopia.net>
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To: <dalecki@evision.ag>
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Subject: Re: PROPOSAL: /proc standards (was dot-proc interface [was: /proc
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On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Martin Dalecki wrote:
>And then converted back to ASCII for printout on the terminal ;-).

Well, they don't always get printf()'d...

>The second problem is that /proc is one of the few design "inventions" in
>linux, which didn't get copied over from some other UNIX box and Linus
>doesn't wan't recognize that this was A BAD DESIGN CHOICE.

/proc is a wonderful thing for what it was originally intended: access to
the process table without looking at the tables in the kernel memory space
(remember SunOS?  what happened if /vmunix wasn't the running kernel?)
Unfortunately, /proc has become the gheto of the Linux kernel.  It is now
the general dumping grounds for user/kernel interfacing.  As a developer tool
it's very handy; it's also very dangerous.  Developers then resort to
/proc as a perminant interface between kernel drivers and userland. (In
the *BSD world, this is a kernfs, not a procfs.)

For an example of /proc done right, find a Solaris box.  What do you find
in /proc?  Gee, process information.  Only process information.  In. Binary.

--Ricky


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