procfs in 5.4

[Kris Kennaway]

On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 07:50:47PM +0200, martinko wrote:
> hi,
> 
> i've been wondering long time what's the actual state of procfs in freebsd.
> 
> yes, i added procfs line to fstab but i do not mount it automatically at
> system startup.
> yet i'm still able to use ps(1) unlike the originator of this thread.
> how come?

It's recommended not to use it unless you need to (at least on systems
with untrusted users) because of the history of local security
vulnerabilities.

> i believe i've read somewhere that (use of) procfs was dropped or
> something and freebsd does not use it anymore. if so, i'm asking why and
> then why did the originator of this thread have problem running ps(1)
> without procfs mounted?

ps doesn't use (and never did use, afaik) procfs for normal operation.
There is one function of ps that needs procfs, which is what the
original poster was enquiring about.

Kris
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20050524/5e683936/attachment.bin