> > Good point. There must be a way for drivers to declare if > > CALLOUT_MPSAFE or not. Need to extend if_flags. > > Hmm, if_flags. > > http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-net/2009/01/27/msg000985.html > > Do we have to care about kvm(3) users (i.e., netstat) as well as > the callout_t issue? [ .. ] > > Yes, netstat(1) uses sysctl(3) to fetch statistics numbers. But > > netstat(1) needs to know struct type information (by building if.c) to > > read kernel cores via kvm(3). Maybe making kvm(3) to understand DWARF > > type information helps? > > I don't understand how kvm(3) works though, if we don't change existing > members of struct ifnet, can old netstat(1) run on a new kernel that > adds a value hidden in _KERNEL to struct ifnet?
you don't have to worry about making old kvm users work on new kernels. that has never been a useful goal, and why we have switched most run-time usage to sysctl(). the real benefit of kvm programs is running against a core file. if crash(8) was extended to handle these cases, or perhaps some gdb scripts, then we could obsolete the kvm usage entirely. (of course, netstat still has a non trivial amount of sysctl work to go, at least last time i looked.) thanks. .mrg.