Re: UUIDs (and devfs and major/minor numbers)
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
Fri, 18 Jun 1999 00:03:06 -0700
Dan Hollis wrote:
>
> On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > Dan Hollis wrote:
> > > On 18 Jun 1999, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > > > Actually, there is. The /dev directory is a mapping table between the
> > > > kernel interface (as well as providing a store for permissions), and
> > > > devfs removes this.
> > > This is not as useful or important as you try to make it out to be.
> > Useful to whom? (Not you, I gather.)
>
> If you start playing around with device names, expect severe application
> breakage.
>
> Or maybe you have some interesting justification to start renaming
> /dev/tty* into other things?
>
> Or lets rename /dev/null on a whim and see how useful that is.
>
> -Dan
You totally don't get it, do you? First of all, there is the
permissions issue. Second of all, say I have a device called, say
/dev/keyboard. Now I want to simulate keyboard input with a user-space
process, or redirect the keyboard input from say, a serial port. That's
what a level of indirection is for.
-hpa
--
"The user's computer downloads the ActiveX code and simulates a 'Blue
Screen' crash, a generally benign event most users are familiar with
and that would not necessarily arouse suspicions."
-- Security exploit description on http://www.zks.net/p3/how.asp
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/