Re: DEVFSv50 and /dev/fb? (or /dev/fb/? ???)

Raul Miller (rdm@test.legislate.com)
Mon, 10 Aug 1998 07:22:11 -0400

Richard Gooch <Richard.Gooch@atnf.CSIRO.AU> wrote:
> Note that if you have a configuration which uses devfs solely for
> its role as an information service provider for devfsd, (i.e. you
> keep using a disc-based /dev) then one of the things you loose is the
> ability to lookup non-existent device nodes in /dev and have modules
> automatically loaded by kmod.

Two cases:

(1) ls /dev would then show what devices are available. [But then,
it's not really the case of looking up non-existent device nodes in /dev.]

(2) ls /dev would not show what devices are available. [A user space
daemon which created device entries when the hardware is detected would
be nicer than this.]

Also, how does the system administrator determine who gets to access
non-existent device nodes? A root-only mechanism would be secure,
but then what's the problem with running insmod?

Note: I'm not saying here that temporarily assigned major numbers are a
bad thing, but at least this "non-existent node" part of the rationale
seems bogus.

-- 
Raul


-
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.altern.org/andrebalsa/doc/lkml-faq.html