From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750944AbWDKSI4 (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:08:56 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750919AbWDKSI4 (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:08:56 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:13275 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750817AbWDKSIz (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:08:55 -0400 Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 11:08:41 -0700 From: Pete Zaitcev To: greg@kroah.com Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, zaitcev@redhat.com Subject: Binary sysfs blobs Message-Id: <20060411110841.71390306.zaitcev@redhat.com> Organization: Red Hat, Inc. X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.2.3 (GTK+ 2.8.15; i386-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi, Greg: I was reviewing some patches here and noticed (yes, only now noticed) that we have operations on binary blobs in fs/sysfs/bin.c. I thought it wasn't part of the deal for sysfs, with one value per file and so on. I suppose it's too late to debate now, but I have a couple of questions: - Do you know of any conventions which allow to determine which file is binary? Maybe the name starting with an underscore or something? - Is there a standing policy that reading from a sysfs file is not altering a state of the corresponding hardware? This is not related to blobs directly, but with people passing structs now, it's tempting to implement some extended protocols. I am concerned of stealing network packets by accident or something. Greetings, -- Pete