Eric W. Biederman wrote:
- Removal of sys_sysctl support where people had used conflicting sysctl numbers. Trying to break glibc or other applications by changing the ABI is not cool. 9 instances of this in the kernel seems a little extreme.
It would be highly advantageous if we could have a file that acts as a central registry of architectural sysctl numbers *and have the numbers in the kernel derived from there*. As I've said before, I don't really think sys_sysctl is any worse than ad hoc system calls (sys_mips and the like), but the real problem is that there are architectural and non-archtectural numbers, and they're mixed in all over the place.
I think it would be fair to say that if they're not in <linux/sysctl.h> they're not architectural, but that doesn't resolve the counterpositive (are there sysctls in <linux/sysctl.h> which aren't architectural? From the looks of it, I would say yes.) Non-architectural sysctl numbers should not be exported to userspace, and should eventually be rejected by sys_sysctl.
-hpa
