Thanks Marcus. So, this way is the L4 really the next (best?) choice to a microkernel for the Hurd?
Bruno. > On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 09:31:47AM -0300, brunoacf wrote: > > There is some effort to implement > > virtual filesystems like procfs and > > devfs into the Hurd? Sometime ago I > > saw a discussion about "Hurd do not > > need procfs" in the mailing lists but > > I still believe it would be a good > > improvement. > > If you say procfs, you are probably thinking about the Linux /proc > filesystem. There is some information accessible via the trusted proc > server, and for other information in the Hurd you can access tasks directly to > get it (see the msgport program, for example - in the L4 port, this includes > even basic stuff like inspecting memory). > > This can theoretically also be done by procfs. But only theoretically. In > reality, this would mean that the procfs filesystem contacts the process on > your behalf. But this means that if the process is malicious and does block > indefinitely on the request, the procfs thread would be stuck. It could use > a timeout, but even a small timeout makes a server vulnerable to denial of > service attacks. > > So, there are security issues in the Hurd which make a proc filesystem a > suboptimal solution. Only some of the features of a Linux proc filesystem > could be provided by such a system wide translator. > > So, such a translator could be written, but it would usefully be implemented > as a translator that should be run by the users themselves, and thus > consumes their resources, rather than system wide. > > Device fs is different. Given the pityful state of device drivers in GNU > Mach, this doesn't make much sense today. With the port to L4, we will have > a much more dynamic framework, and it will make sense and probably be > implemented. Device fs is different because the device drivers are trusted > and centralized (as opposed to procfs, where the information is distributed > and provided by untrusted sources). > > Thanks, > Marcus > > -- > `Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU http://www.gnu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Marcus Brinkmann The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/ > __________________________________________________________________________ Acabe com aquelas janelinhas que pulam na sua tela. AntiPop-up UOL - � gr�tis! http://antipopup.uol.com.br/ _______________________________________________ Help-hurd mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-hurd
