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Commit 86926d00 authored by Eric W. Biederman's avatar Eric W. Biederman
Browse files

sysctl: Remove CTL_NONE and CTL_UNNUMBERED 



Now that the sysctl structures no longer have a ctl_name field
there is no reason to retain the definitions for CTL_NONE and
CTL_UNNUMBERED, or to explain their historic usage.

Signed-off-by: default avatarEric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
parent 60a0a52d

Documentation/sysctl/ctl_unnumbered.txt

deleted100644 → 0
+0 −22
Original line number Diff line number Diff line 


Except for a few extremely rare exceptions user space applications do not use

the binary sysctl interface.  Instead everyone uses /proc/sys/...  with

readable ascii names.



Recently the kernel has started supporting setting the binary sysctl value to

CTL_UNNUMBERED so we no longer need to assign a binary sysctl path to allow

sysctls to show up in /proc/sys.



Assigning binary sysctl numbers is an endless source of conflicts in sysctl.h,

breaking of the user space ABI (because of those conflicts), and maintenance

problems.  A complete pass through all of the sysctl users revealed multiple

instances where the sysctl binary interface was broken and had gone undetected

for years.



So please do not add new binary sysctl numbers.  They are unneeded and

problematic.



If you really need a new binary sysctl number please first merge your sysctl

into the kernel and then as a separate patch allocate a binary sysctl number.



(ebiederm@xmission.com, June 2007)

include/linux/sysctl.h

+0 −9
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -15,9 +15,6 @@ 
 **  The kernel will then return -ENOTDIR to any application using

 **  the old binary interface.

 **

 **  For new interfaces unless you really need a binary number

 **  please use CTL_UNNUMBERED.

 **

 ****************************************************************

 ****************************************************************

 */
@@ -50,12 +47,6 @@ struct __sysctl_args { 


/* Top-level names: */



/* For internal pattern-matching use only: */

#ifdef __KERNEL__

#define CTL_NONE	0

#define CTL_UNNUMBERED	CTL_NONE	/* sysctl without a binary number */

#endif



enum

{

	CTL_KERN=1,		/* General kernel info and control */