Subject: Re: kern/25368: crash after SADB_X_SPDFLUSH
To: None <tech-net@NetBSD.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: tech-net
Date: 05/17/2004 05:50:32
> (Personally, I dont want to see a kernfs api added to FAST_IPSEC.
> Some users often don't want kernfs for good and sufficient reasons of
> their own)

The way you juxtapose those sentences leads me to think that you see
some connection between them.  I see only a very tenuous one.

The second sentence's point is a reason to avoid making kernfs the
_only_ interface to something; it is not a reason to avoid making
kernfs _one of various_ interfaces to something.  I would actually like
to see a lot more things added to kernfs - though I think there are
very few, probably no, things for which it is appropriate to make
kernfs the _only_ interface.

I do have a question, though: why do you (seem to) see sysctl as so
superior to kernfs as an interface to such things?  The only
differences I can see are (1) the kernfs interface grafts its namespace
into the filesystem, (2) the kernfs interface is optional, both in that
it can be compiled out of the kernel and in that it must be mounted to
work, and (3) with kernfs, the ABI as well as the API uses a string
namespace whereas with sysctl the ABI uses vectors of ints.  None of
these seems to me to be a clear lose (each has positive and negative
aspects, and which are which shift depending on the putative use); none
explain the knee-jerk "evil kernfs! kernfs bad!" reaction I see
whenever kernfs interfaces are mentioned.

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