Daniel Carosone writes:
> I don't like grovelling kmem either, from an aesthetic viewpoint of
> the cleanliness of the interface (and because of the requirement for
> so many suid-0 binaries).

sgid kmem, actually, and they are fairly safe since they can only read
kmem.

> But, it is the best way to keep out of the
> kernel the greatest amount of the code which interprets the kernel
> data structures and formats them for the user. If you consider the
> interface to be the output of these programs, and that interface is
> clean, then it can still be an aesthetically-pleasing solution.

CGD repeatedly points out another major reason for kmem groveling --
so your tools can work on kernel core dumps.

I prefer file systems aesthetically, but CGD's argument is a bit of a
showstopper.

Perry