On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, matthew green wrote:

> are you suggesting that we make kernfs a *required* part of a running
> netbsd system?  if so, then this isn't such a bad idea[*] but i've not
> heard anyone suggest it yet.  only that it's "more clean" than sysctl.

Not today. I'm suggesting that we let people write tools that will use
kernfs first if present. As more tools come to use kernfs, we can see if
we like it or don't.

kernfs has suffered from both a lack of interest and vocal opposition. As
such it doesn't have a ton of functionality today. Thus this isn't the
time to make it REQUIRED. However it'd be nice to let tools use it if
present.

> (BTW: a new sysctl implementation that maps names->numbers for you, which
> allows for dynamic entries to be added, is on the way i'm told...)

And one thing I looked at (and probably should play with again) is adding
/kern/sysctl & putting the whole sysctl MIB under there. Or at least what
makes sense. :-) Now that kernfs supports subdirectories, shouldn't be
hard.

Take care,

Bill