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SubjectRe:RFC: Get rid of CONFIG_PROC_FS, was Re: "CONFIG_PROCFS" problem , in 2.3.18ac8
On Thu, 23 Sep 1999, Tigran Aivazian wrote:
> excellent idea! The only arguments against it that I heard were "ah, but
> we build embedded Linux system and every byte of memory is important".
> This argument is not serious and should receive a decent reply such as
> "touch, in'it?".

I think there a large number of embedded systems developers who would
disagree with you about the seriousness of their needs. Both memory
conservation and realtime guarantees are extremely important; the memory
requirements will define a fixed cost of their device (if it's be
targetted for mass production), and lowering that is a serious goal.

Remember, we still have /dev/kmem, which serves the need for access to
all the same information, and does so in a much lighter-weight manner,
much more suitable for low-memory and embedded systems.

> Also, all your suggestions seem excellent but I would add something
> slightly more radical but, imho, also useful. How about making /proc also
> mounted automatically? Sure, one can also manually mount it elsewhere as
> many times as one wants but ensuring that /proc is *always* there at
> /proc seems a good idea. The specific location "/proc" is part of some
> standard (can't remember which) so it is not too bad to hardcode it.

This has so many problems, I don't even know where to begin.

Enforcing that /proc be mounted in a particular position at boot time has
a number of side effects:

- policy: the kernel is enforcing policy on userspace, in a manner it
currently doesn't do (and doesn't need to). Why force this naming
convention and placement on people?

- security: /proc reveals an incredible amount of information about a
system. Not everyone is as comfortable as you providing that data to
all users, and as there is no pressing need in most cases to mount that
in a publically-accessable location, why force it on people?

I could keep going, but I'm short on time, and I'm sure someone else will
expound on this too.

--
Edward S. Marshall <emarshal@logic.net> [ What goes up, must come down. ]
http://www.logic.net/~emarshal/ [ Ask any system administrator. ]



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