Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:49:00 -0700
From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
To: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] sysctl: Deprecate sys_sysctl in a user space visible
 fashion.
Message-Id: <20070828214900.5d4b47ad.akpm@linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <20070828230459.GA15937@infradead.org>
References: <m1veazb7w0.fsf@ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com>
	<20070828230459.GA15937@infradead.org>
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On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:04:59 +0100 Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 04:40:15PM -0600, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> > +When:	September 2010
> > +Option: CONFIG_SYSCTL_SYSCALL
> > +Why:	The same information is available in a more convenient from
> > +	/proc/sys, and none of the sysctl variables appear to be
> > +	important performance wise.
> > +
> > +	Binary sysctls are a long standing source of subtle kernel
> > +	bugs and security issues.
> > +
> > +	When I looked several months ago all I could find after
> > +	searching several distributions were 5 user space programs and
> > +	glibc (which falls back to /proc/sys) using this syscall.
> 
> Umm, no way we're ever going to remove a syscall like this.  Please
> stop this deprecration crap.  Just make sure no ones adds more binary
> sysctls.

I think it's worth a try.  It might take two, three or five years, who
knows?  If it turns out to be impractical then we we can just change our
minds later, no big loss.  It's just too early to say right now.


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