Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 2 Jun 2011 14:12:34 +0100 | From | Alan Cox <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] sysctl: add support for poll() |
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> > Or to manage it properly. > > What if the user decides do invoke sethostname syscall "by hand"? > Hostname would change beneath any other process that is trying to > manage it properly. What this patch does is to notify that process > that something happened.
That is a stupid argument. Shall we extend it to its logical idiotic end and ask
"What if the user decides to recompile their kernel without sysfs poll support ?"
You have to be root to run sethostname, at which point you are realistically at the command line, a superuser and you know what you are doing (eg using sethostname for non IP network naming, or cluster id, or other stuff).
> With this patch in, if anyone wants to manage a file under /proc/sys > there's really a small amount of code to write. He only has to define > the new poll struct for that file.
Sure - and there is an 8 byte cost per sysctl node (of which we have rather a lot), and we really need to tackle sysfs not sysctl anyway.
I'm not averse to pollable sysfs/sysctl nodes at all although the memory hit on sysfs is going to be tricky to manage and need clever code.
I just think the utsname is a completely misguided example and whoever is trying to do it doesn't actually understand the limits of utsname.
Alan
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