On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 07:21:30PM +0200, Tim Schmielau wrote: > On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 Horms wrote: > > On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 04:50:03PM +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > > This breaks the accounting format, so it's a change that needs a lot > > > of thought. > > > > I agree, though it is curious that it is enabled on alpha and hppa. > > Does that imply that it works with their userspace, and thus should work > > on other arches too. Or does it imply that no one has noticed that it > > doesn't work? > > Most certainly the latter. v3 format is so different that it does not work > 'by accident'. So the right fix for this inconsistency is to turn > CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT_V3 off on all platforms (at least until userland > is able to understand this format).
Thanks for the advice, I shall make that so. > Regarding transition to v3 format, I see two possible routes: > > 1) Install acct package with multiformat support. This allows users to > switch between kernels different CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT_V3 settings > and probably smoothens the transition. > > 2) Don't change the acct package, but remove acct v2 format support from > the kernel (and libc header files!). > This way recompiling acct leads to userland tools that understand > v3 format _only_. > Less smooth a transition for users, but doesn't rely on my > multiformat support patch being bug-free. ;-) > SuSE e.g. decided to follow this route. The second option is problematic becase Debian supports custom kernels, and its probably not reasonable to mandate that custom built kernels do not have v2 support. Morover, this seems to be a substantial deviation from upstream, which is something that we would like to avoid. > Best would probably be to have multiformat support in an official release > of GNU acct, but this requires someone to actually work on a release. So > far all volunteers (including me) have stepped back from this task before > they got a release out. :-( :) > Btw., don't forget the other tools that read the accounting file. > "atop" was brought to my attention, but I haven't looked into it yet. > > Tim -- Horms -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
