Re: Kernel-generated /dev...

David Holland (dholland@hcs.harvard.edu)
Tue, 17 Oct 1995 22:01:49 -0400 (EDT)


> Here's one possible compromise... have /proc/dev have all of the devices,
> with their suggested names, owned by root, with permission 000.
>
> A simple script can move them to /dev and rename, chown and/or chmod
> them at boot time to useful values.

This is useless; it's just as easy to chown/chmod them in place. /proc
already supports these operations. People are holding out for a scheme
that causes the right permissions to appear automatically.

The best suggestion I've heard involves kerneld - at shutdown it reads
off all the permissions and stashes them somewhere, and then
automatically puts them back at boot time.

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with compiling in good default
values and having /etc/rc make customizations as necessary. It's no
worse than doing network setup from /etc/rc.

> Unix has lived with the wierd /dev system for a while, so it's
> definitely not fatal to stick with it, [...]

no, but it's less than desirable.

-- 
   - David A. Holland             | Average number of times an American 
     dholland@hcs.harvard.edu     | opens the refrigerator each day: 22