Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!sun-barr!decwrl!decvax!ima!minya!jc
From: jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: is this wise?
Message-ID: <138@minya.UUCP>
Date: 16 May 89 02:53:32 GMT
References: <378@chessene.UUCP> <53756@uunet.UU.NET> <16437@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> <1989May6.133452.465@light.uucp>
Organization: (none)
Lines: 28

In article <1989May6.133452.465@light.uucp>, bvs@light.uucp (Bakul Shah) writes:
> In article <53862@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
> > [...]
> >I can see it now:
> >
> >	gettimeofday() becomes open("/dev/clock")
> 
> This is not as silly as it seems.  In fact it can open up some
> exciting possibilities.  

Yeah, including the ability to make /dev/clock writable by a group, so that
you don't have to give the root password to everyone in your sys group.

Also, for some years, I've wondered why various kernel tables aren't files.
Rather than programs groveling around in /dev/kmem (and requiring them to
be setuid-root), wouldn't it be easier if they looked like:

crw-rw----   1 sys    sys    0, 37 Dec  6  1985 /dev/kernel/foo

Now no root permissions are needed to access this chunk of the kernel.
Given that Unix always has a device driver for accessing memory, think 
of how easy it would be to add all the tables as minor devices...

-- 
John Chambers <{adelie,ima,mit-eddie}!minya!{jc,root}> (617/484-6393)

[Any errors in the above are due to failures in the logic of the keyboard,
not in the fingers that did the typing.]