Access to kmem - System namelist - 'ps' etc

[Joe Eykholt]

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.]