Path: there.is.no.cabal
From: orc@pell.portland.or.us (david parsons)
>Dynamic filesystems have their place. However, /dev isn't one of them.
This argument has been done to death, so I'll do my executive summary
for why it is:
/dev is a database of the devices that are attached to the system.
The system should publish, in a usable without black magic form,
this database.
Well, here's the executive summary on the other side. /dev is *not* the
database of the devices that are attached to the system. That's the
fundamental devfs fallacy. It is a place where programs can "connect"
to devices which are connected to the system. In this (more traditional
Unix) view, device files are in the same class as Unix-domain sockets,
and named pipes. They are special files; nothing more, nothing less.
When you create /home/ftp/dev/null, etc. you are not creating a limited
"view" of some database; you are created a directory of special files
which are required for user programs to function correctly in a chroot
jail. Again, nothing more, nothing less.
This idea that /dev should be a "database" is not a traditional Unix
view, and given that files in the /dev directory do have user state,
such as permissions, user and group ownerships, etc. that need to
survive device insertion and deletion, it drives this point home quite
forcefully.
- Ted
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 23 2000 - 21:00:16 EST