Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 08:24:32 +1100
From: Richard Gooch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
1) it would be slow
Why do you think it would be slower? Most machines have relatively few
devices in /dev, and the dcache takes care of the remaining performance
issues. The trick would be the daemon would make sure that only the
required devices would be populated in /dev.
2) it would require a patch that is essentially the devfs patch minus
the ability to mount a FS (the device information still needs to
be recorded in a database, devfs includes the ability to access
that database via a FS).
No, because the only information you need is which major numbers, and
for disks, which minor numbers are available (possibly filling in a
bitmap). The database which maps the the major/minor numbers to actual
names would be a file which is read by the daemon. I'd probably have
the default permissions in the system file, but have an overridable file
which the local system administrator could edit if he/she wanted to
override either the default name or permissions. If you're really
clever, you could automatically generate the database file from the
devices.txt file --- or that might become the new format for the
devices.txt file.
The point is that you can do all of this in user space, and not keep all
of the filename information in the kernel, where (a) bloats the kernel,
and (b) makes it hard for the local system administrator to override the
names or permissions, if necessary.
If designed properly, the patch should require far fewer mods to the
kernel than the devfs patch.
- Ted
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