Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:26:12 +0100 | From | Michael Opdenacker <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] sysctl: allow embedded targets to disable sysctl_check.c |
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On 02/08/2008 11:36 AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote: > Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> writes: > > >> On Thu, 7 Feb 2008 14:38:58 +0100 Holger Schurig <hs4233@mail.mn-solutions.de> >> wrote: >> >> >>> Disable sysctl_check.c for embedded targets. This saves about about 11 kB >>> in .text and another 11 kB in .data on a PXA255 embedded platform. >>> >>> >> Nice improvement. But iirc sysctl_check was overtly a temporary thing. >> Eric, was that the intention? >> > > Well so far sysctl_check has been a remarkably effective little piece of code > in catching a great many long over looked bugs. > > I do agree that the static tables are big. My current inclination is to modify > sys_sysctl so that it does a look up in the binary tables to find the ascii > names and then sys_sysctl can lookup the information in the ascii tables. > > If we do that we can completely remove ctl_name form the external sysctl data > structures, which should save us quite a bit of space and make it absolutely > impossible to add a new binary name. And with the current ability to compile > out sys_sysctl the embedded folks would get their space savings. > > I believe the only tricky bit is there are a few places in the network code > where we need to translate from ifindex to interface name. Otherwise > the mapping is fixed. > > No that isn't quite right. Getting the binary to ascii translation for the > values is also a bit tricky. > > As for the rest of the checks I don't know if they are that big. If they > are then an option to compile them out on embedded platforms where you > know what you are doing makes sense. At the same time sysctl has been so > badly abused in the past, and so very many bugs have been over looked > that I am extremely reluctant to disable simple sanity checks at > registration time. > > If we can remove the need for sysctl users to implement the binary > interface many of those checks go completely away as the reason for their > existence would be gone. > > I have seen to many absolutely horrible things in the usage of the sysctl > tables to be happy with an option that removes the sanity checks at this > point, although the patch likely makes sense from a code size perspective. > > Let's see if we can find a bit of time to make those big tables completely > specific to sys_sysctl and kill ctl_name in the kernel. Long term that is > a whole lot more maintainable, and smaller for everyone who can disable > sys_sysctl. > > Eric > Holger, this is a nice improvement allowing to keep /proc/sys but reducing its size. Thanks! On x86, they save 9K in the text section and 12 K in data.
For those embedded system developers who are unfamiliar with this topic, you can already completely remove the /proc/sys interface if you don't need it. Then you save 19K of text and 16 k of data).
Copying the Linux-Tiny mailing list to draw the attraction of more people to this discussion.
Michael.
-- Michael Opdenacker, Free Electrons Free Embedded Linux Training Materials on http://free-electrons.com/training (More than 1500 pages!)
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