Re: [PATCH 2/2] sysctl: remove sysctl syscall

[Cong Wang]

On 10/20/10 21:54, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Cong Wang<amwang@xxxxxxxxxx>  writes:
>
> > On 10/20/10 00:00, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> > > To the best of my knowledge the last and user of sys_sysctl is the glibc
> > > ioperm (my apologies I mispoke when I said iopl) implementation on arm.
> > > Not that people run around calling ioperm very often in any distro.
> >
> >
> > I saw that in Changelog of glibc too, but that was back to 2000, 10 years
> > past, I don't see any code using sysctl() in glibc now, except sys_sysctl()
> > itself, of course.
>
> You have to look in the glibc-ports tree to see the arm code.
>
> The arm support is not in the main glibc tree for some reason.
>
> Hmm. Looking I thought sys_sysctl had stopped being exported from glibc
> but it appears I was wrong.


Ok, got it.


> > I believe they should see the kernel warnings if they are still using
> > sysctl.
>
> Unfortunately sometimes a word to the wise isn't quite enough. Sigh.  I
> very much think having the sysctl code disabled by default is definitely
> safe right now, and the first responsible step in getting this code
> removed from the kernel.
>
> There were two original reasons for the deprecations.  Maintaining the
> binary sysctl logic was bug prone, and no one was using sysctl.
>
> The rewriting of the binary interface into binary_sysctl.c takes care of
> most if not all of the maintenance concerns.  You may think you are
> using the binary interface but the kernel just rewrites it into a /proc
> access.
>
> What is left is an interface in the kernel that no one uses and that
> will eventually bit rot, for lack of care, attention, and testing, but we
> still have a while until that happens.
>
> I recommend this:


This sounds ok for me.
Do you want to me to carry this patch for you and resend?

> ---
> diff --git a/init/Kconfig b/init/Kconfig
> index 2de5b1c..a9e1cda 100644
> --- a/init/Kconfig
> +++ b/init/Kconfig
> @@ -808,7 +808,7 @@ config UID16
>   config SYSCTL_SYSCALL
>   	bool "Sysctl syscall support" if EMBEDDED
>   	depends on PROC_SYSCTL
> -	default y
> +	default n
>   	select SYSCTL
>   	---help---
>   	  sys_sysctl uses binary paths that have been found challenging
> @@ -816,11 +816,15 @@ config SYSCTL_SYSCALL
>   	  using paths with ascii names is now the primary path to this
>   	  information.
>
> -	  Almost nothing using the binary sysctl interface so if you are
> -	  trying to save some space it is probably safe to disable this,
> -	  making your kernel marginally smaller.
> +	  This option is kept as a service to our loyal customers who
> +	  have ignored all of our warnings over the years and have a
> +	  binary somewhere that won't work without this.
> +
> +	  This code is not regularly used or tested and will probably have
> +	  bit-rotted before someone cares enough to do more maintenance on it
> +	  so enable at your own risk.
>
> -	  If unsure say Y here.
> +	  Say N here.
>
>   config KALLSYMS
>   	 bool "Load all symbols for debugging/ksymoops" if EMBEDDED


Thanks!
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