sensors fun..

[John Baldwin]

On Friday 19 October 2007 05:34:44 am Alexander Leidinger wrote:
> Quoting John Baldwin <jhb at freebsd.org> (from Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:50:37 -0400):
> 
> > On Thursday 18 October 2007 07:39:49 am Alexander Leidinger wrote:
> >> To me it looks like your proposal spans more than one of the above
> >> described layers in one package. It seems you describe what I call
> >> single-system sensors framework above. It looks like you want to have
> >> this with parts of it in the kernel. I don't think this is a good idea
> >> as I don't think userland data should be feed into the kernel. Could
> >> you please describe where you see benefits of your architecture
> >> compared to the description I provided above?
> >
> > Nowhere do I suggest to feed userland data into the kernel just so it can be
> > reexported to userland.  Instead, I think the "public" interface that systat,
> > monitoring daemons, SNMP, etc. should be a userland interface that can have
> > multiple backends.  It can pull data from a sensor implemented in userland or
> > a sensor implemented in the kernel.
> 
> I was thinking you talk about the interface between the kernel and the  
> userland. Now I think that you talk more or less about something which  
> could be implemented e.g., as an userland library which not only polls  
> the kernel sensors framework, but provides the single-system sensor  
> data (and could be a base of a singe-system sensor daemon which feeds  
> its data to a group-level sensors framework). Does this sound like  
> what you have in mind?

Yes.  And I don't think that the kernel-userland interface for kernel-backed
sensors should be a "public" interface, but a private backend that only the
sensors framework uses.  The "public" interface that tools and users, etc.
should be using is the library.  Basically, in your three levels of sensors
I think the first level should be an implementation detail that is free to
change if needed as it won't be a "public" API.  The stable, public API would
be the userland interface.

-- 
John Baldwin