[Gllug] Re: [CHINWAG] /proc

[Jim Bailey]

On Thu, May 23, 2002 at 02:01:31PM +0200, John Hearns wrote:
> Tet! Watch that Subject header!
> 9Grins as he blatantly hijacks Colin's thread)
> 
> On Thu, 2002-05-23 at 13:47, tet at accucard.com wrote:
> 
> > Because it's really *not* there. /proc is basically just the kernel
> > exposing information to userland. It happens to use filesystem
> > semantics to do so (rather than, say, a system call), because it's
> > a convenient interface for some things. 
> Good point. Anyone else care to say what "some things" might be?
> 
> 
> 
> The kernel effectively has
> > a filesystem driver for procfs, so that when you cat a file, instead
> > of reading blocks from disk, it reads information from kernel data
> > structures instead. Similarly, writing to /proc updates the relevant
> > data structures (although not all can be written to).
> > 
> > >If so, are there any fun - or time wasting - things that could be piped to 
> > >the /proc system?
> > 
> > Yes, plenty! See /sur/src/linux/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt for
> > an incomplete list.
> Good stuff.
> 
> Whos's next with the talking stick - anyone newbies out there want to
> say "Excuse me - I didn't understand a word there".
>
I basically understand what is going on with /proc and have had a good
poke around in there in the past.  Curently I am reading the securing
Debian howto and section 4.16 discusses echoing stuff into the /proc
system.  However following the instructions to # sysctl -A find a list
of configuration options, draws a blank.  I have found documentation on
the web that seems to show it should be there but apt-get and dselect
draws a blank.  Any body out there know what I need to do and willing to
share.

Peace Jim


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