Re: Syscall number allocation

Olaf Titz (olaf@bigred.inka.de)
Sun, 04 Jun 2000 13:15:15 +0200


> Is there some sort of precedent/procedure for reserving syscall table
> entries? I'm working on getting a new version of our crash dump system
> ready, and binary compatibility for the user-space part between kernel
> versions would be a big plus for users.

Does this need a syscall? At least if you only need to access this
stuff (a) long before a crash (to control its operations) and (b)
after a reboot (to get crash data) a character device should do the
job fine. The ioctl() interface is inelegant but registering a misc
device should be easier than a syscall, and if everything else fails
you can always change the device number while remaining binary
compatible.

A device is also easier to implement via a module, since the hooks are
already there.

Olaf

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