>>> psdatabase is responsible for the WCHAN column of the output of "ps >>> -l", so your system will boot. Without psdatabase, you will get >>> numbers in this column instead of routine names. >>What if I recompiled my kernel, changing some kernel config options >>in the process, but failed to run `psupdate'? >Then you'd get strange information in WCHAN, for a start. I don't >have the source for ps handy, but I expect that it hits a hash table >created from psdatabase, and you see GIGO. I doubt, knowing the >coding standards, that ps assumes it'll hit a hash entry, but it's >possible... I'll have to get the source and check it out.
Okay, I've checked, and 'ps -l' does no bounds checking for WCHAN, it appears. Effectively, this means that if psdatabase is out of sync, 'ps -l' can cause demons to fly out of your nose. I've sent a patch off to the maintainer, Charles Blake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> to fix the problem. Nevertheless, it seems that it should either give bad data in WCHAN or dump core, with no ill effects outside of that. -- http://www.wp.com/joelh --- Joel Ray Holveck --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fourth law of computing: Anything that can go wro .signature: segmentation violation -- core dumped
