Subject: procfs & mount changes (was: ps /proc changes)
To: None <tech-userlevel@netbsd.org, tech-kern@netbsd.org>
From: Greg A. Woods <woods@most.weird.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 03/29/1999 16:07:38
[[ note the followup to tech-kern! ]]

[ On Monday, March 29, 1999 at 00:35:55 (-0600), Brian C. Grayson wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: ps /proc changes (CVS commit: src)
>
>   It is way too easy to mount things on top of /proc and thus
> fool or confuse programs.  I think checking the FS of open /proc
> files is an important concept that should be put in the man
> pages for mount_procfs and mount_kernfs.  Is there any kind of
> SECURITY section?  I didn't see any in the mdoc.samples man page.  

That's why I suggest that procfs be changed so that the directories in
/proc appear as owned by root, and *not* by the user.  It probably
should have been that way all along, but no doubt when procfs was first
envisioned it was expected that mount(2) would always require superuser
priviledges.

Speaking of that, it would seem the mount/umount(2) manual page could
use some cleaning up -- I suspect it doesn't accurately represent what
the kernel implements any more, especially the part about EPERM.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
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