Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site amdahl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!nsc!amdahl!jre From: jre@amdahl.UUCP (Joe Eykholt) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: Re: Access to kmem - System namelist - 'ps' etc Message-ID: <934@amdahl.UUCP> Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 22:41:14 EST Article-I.D.: amdahl.934 Posted: Mon Jan 14 22:41:14 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 21:11:40 EST References: <126@dadla.UUCP> <1587@psuvax1.UUCP> Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 26 I know I'm coming into this discussion towards the end and I haven't been keeping up with all the other proposals, but: I think the method my predecesors at Amdahl chose to solve this problem is rather clean. They added a special file that references the process table memory, exactly like /dev/mem. Actually this file is just another minor number for the /dev/mem driver. A read from offset 0 in /dev/smem/proc reads from the start of the process table. Our modified ps doesn't require a namelist. If none is specified it just opens /dev/smem/proc and reads process structures until it gets an EOF. While I agree that this feature isn't necessary, and that the cost of every kernel enhancement should be carefully considered. I think it would be nice to get away from programs which need to interpret the namelist, and have to know a lot about the layout of the kernel. Other special memory files we provided are: /dev/smem/file, inode, stats (for sysinfo), text, and var. -- Joe Eykholt ...{hplabs,ihnp4,amd,drivax,nsc,sun}!amdahl!jre [Opinions expressed by me are not necessarily held by any other entity.]