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From ketil@ii ...
SubjectRe: PROPOSAL: /proc/dev
Date07 Jan 1998 10:03:21 +0100
o.r.c@p.e.l.l.p.o.r.t.l.a.n.d.o.r.u.s (david parsons) writes:

>    I want a devfs so that I can have the kernel tell the outside world what
>    devices exist.  For things like ptys, I don't particularly care about
>    a devfs -- the existing scheme is sufficient -- but for serial,
>    parallel, ide, and scsi devices I'd much rather mount a magic
>    filesystem instead of having to root through /proc/kmsg to find out

Just a thought as to the configurability of devfs - ya know, number of
ptys, ownership, permissions, multiple (chroot) /dev directories etc -
couldn't the  devfs be an overlay (a la unionfs) on top of a regular
/dev directory? 

a) devfs can copy permissions and stuff from the underlying directory
b) you could (conceivably?) mknod and chmod "through" the devfs
c) you could boot a non-devfs kernel and expect it to work
d) each device (driver) could decide what devices to expose from the
   underlying directory - e.g. ptys would just pass through, disks would
   only show what actually exists and provide rw------ devices for
   volumes that don't exist "below", other devices might choose to ignore
   it entirely, etc
e) you wouldn't depend on messy config files in /etc or anywhere to get
   stuff working.
Just a thought.

~kzm
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants

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