apmd and other archs

[Michael Schmitz]

> On Thu, Nov 23, 2000 at 12:15:32PM +0100, Michael Schmitz wrote:
>
> > Re: mounting /etc readonly: how do you handle /etc/mtab in that case? :-)
>
> Symlink it to /proc/mounts, of course. :)

Good answer. I'd have used a symlink to some writeable directory on the
root fs, mainly because using /proc all over the place tends to confuse
Unix admins with no Linux experience. Let's not fall into the Solaris trap
(you are in a maze of twisty little config files, all different from the
rest of Unix').

> /etc/mtab has always been evil, and not just because it's in the wrong
> directory.  It's about equivalent to the "route" or "ipchains" commands
> keeping track of what _they_ thought the kernel settings were, and then if
> you tried to list the routes or firewall rules, they would just cat the
> file.  Yuck.

It's not elegant, more something of a historic wart ... Unix is full of
that :-)

	Michael


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