forked from Minki/linux
97d8f83cb7
Poeple keep on adding new numbered sysctls, when they're supposed not to. Add a documentation file which explain why new sysctls should use CTL_UNNUMBERED. The next patch will sprinkle pointers to this throughout sysctl.c. Eric provided the text (thanks) Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
23 lines
962 B
Plaintext
23 lines
962 B
Plaintext
|
|
Except for a few extremely rare exceptions user space applications do not use
|
|
the binary sysctl interface. Instead everyone uses /proc/sys/... with
|
|
readable ascii names.
|
|
|
|
Recently the kernel has started supporting setting the binary sysctl value to
|
|
CTL_UNNUMBERED so we no longer need to assign a binary sysctl path to allow
|
|
sysctls to show up in /proc/sys.
|
|
|
|
Assigning binary sysctl numbers is an endless source of conflicts in sysctl.h,
|
|
breaking of the user space ABI (because of those conflicts), and maintenance
|
|
problems. A complete pass through all of the sysctl users revealed multiple
|
|
instances where the sysctl binary interface was broken and had gone undetected
|
|
for years.
|
|
|
|
So please do not add new binary sysctl numbers. They are unneeded and
|
|
problematic.
|
|
|
|
If you really need a new binary sysctl number please first merge your sysctl
|
|
into the kernel and then as a separate patch allocate a binary sysctl number.
|
|
|
|
(ebiederm@xmission.com, June 2007)
|