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Diffstat (limited to 'community/gsoc/project_ideas/procfs.mdwn')
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diff --git a/community/gsoc/project_ideas/procfs.mdwn b/community/gsoc/project_ideas/procfs.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b4d1dc5f --- /dev/null +++ b/community/gsoc/project_ideas/procfs.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2008, 2009, 2011 Free Software Foundation, +Inc."]] + +[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable +id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this +document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or +any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant +Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license +is included in the section entitled +[[GNU Free Documentation License|/fdl]]."]]"""]] + +[[!meta title="procfs"]] + +Although there is no standard (POSIX or other) for the layout of the `/proc` +pseudo-filesystem, it turned out a very useful facility in GNU/Linux and other +systems, and many tools concerned with process management use it. (`ps`, `top`, +`htop`, `gtop`, `killall`, `pkill`, ...) + +Instead of porting all these tools to use [[hurd/libps]] (Hurd's official method for +accessing process information), they could be made to run out of the box, by +implementing a Linux-compatible `/proc` filesystem for the Hurd. + +The goal is to implement all `/proc` functionality needed for the various process +management tools to work. (On Linux, the `/proc` filesystem is used also for +debugging purposes; but this is highly system-specific anyways, so there is +probably no point in trying to duplicate this functionality as well...) + +The [[existing_partially_working_procfs_implementation|hurd/translator/procfs]] +can serve as a starting point, but needs to be largely rewritten. (It should +use [[hurd/libnetfs]] rather than [[hurd/libtrivfs]]; the data format needs to +change to be more Linux-compatible; and it needs adaptation to newer system +interfaces.) + +This project requires learning [[hurd/translator]] programming, and +understanding some of the internals of process management in the Hurd. It +should not be too hard coding-wise; and the task is very nicely defined by the +existing Linux `/proc` interface -- no design considerations necessary. + +**Note**: We already have several applications for this task. + +Possible mentors: Olaf Buddenhagen (antrik) + +Exercise: Add or fix one piece in the existing procfs translator. + +*Status*: Madhusudan.C.S has implemented a new, fully functional [[procfs|madhusudancs]] for +GSoC 2008. He is still working on some outstanding issues. + +--- + +Note that [[jkoenig's `procfs` re-write|hurd/translator/procfs/jkoenig]] should +address all these issues already. |