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Xref: sserve comp.unix.solaris:518 comp.unix.bsd:7886 Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.hawaii.edu!ames!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!uunet!auspex-gw!guy From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris) Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Solaris 1.1 vs. Solaris 2.0 (BSD vs AT&T) Message-ID: <15468@auspex-gw.auspex.com> Date: 12 Nov 92 22:30:59 GMT References: <kzin.721442926@cc.gatech.edu> <BxLz6x.EL7@cs.uiuc.edu> Sender: news@auspex-gw.auspex.com Followup-To: comp.unix.solaris Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara Lines: 33 Nntp-Posting-Host: auspex.auspex.com >If the program accesses the kernel (not just by system calls) I presume by "access the kernel" you mean things such as opening "/dev/kmem" and looking at kernel data structures (or using the "kvm" library). If so, then for those to whom it's not obvious why such programs would need to be ported, kernel data structures are probably *quite* different in Solaris 2.x, which is why programs that access those data structures directly will need to be changed. (Note that programs that mainly just read the process table, and maybe process U areas, can, in Solaris 2.x, use the standard SVR4 "/proc" file system. That will make them more likely to run under future Solaris 2.x releases, and under other SVR4 releases; it will also probably make them simpler, and possibly even less likely to fail in the fashion hinted at in the SunOS 4.x "ps" manual page: BUGS Things can change while ps is running; the picture it gives is only a close approximation to the current state. Things can still change out from under you, but "/proc" may make it less likely to happen.) >or if the >program access some of the system files that have changed (like /etc/fstab => >/etc/vfstab), it will have to be ported. Yup, this is a bit of a headache, as the "getmntent()" routine doesn't hide the name of the file. SVR4 has "getvfsent()" to read "/etc/vfstab", and "getmntent()" to read "/etc/mnttab", and hides the file name.