From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S965120AbWGKEBF (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 00:01:05 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S965121AbWGKEBF (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 00:01:05 -0400 Received: from ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com ([166.70.28.69]:19642 "EHLO ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S965120AbWGKEBE (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 00:01:04 -0400 From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) To: "Randy.Dunlap" Cc: akpm@osdl.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] sysctl: Allow /proc/sys without sys_sysctl References: <20060710154849.cdfa74cd.rdunlap@xenotime.net> Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:00:23 -0600 In-Reply-To: <20060710154849.cdfa74cd.rdunlap@xenotime.net> (Randy Dunlap's message of "Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:48:49 -0700") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.110004 (No Gnus v0.4) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org "Randy.Dunlap" writes: > On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:38:59 -0600 Eric W. Biederman wrote: > >> >> Since sys_sysctl is deprecated start allow it to be compiled out. >> This should catch any remaining user space code that cares, >> and paves the way for further sysctl cleanups. > > Where is it documented and users notified that sys_sysctl is > deprecated? Sounds like it should be added to > Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt. The deprecation I believe actually predates feature-remove-schedule.txt >>From include/linux/sysctl.h > **************************************************************** > **************************************************************** > ** > ** The values in this file are exported to user space via > ** the sysctl() binary interface. However this interface > ** is unstable and deprecated and will be removed in the future. > ** For a stable interface use /proc/sys. > ** > **************************************************************** > **************************************************************** And I can't actually find any user space applications that continue to use sys_sysctl. So the combination of the two patches and makes the deprecation official, and makes it a compile time option so we can disable sys_sysctl now, but still have recourse if some parts of user space need the code. Currently the we dup the internal helpers which makes maintenance of the code a nightmare. Eric