[PATCH] Undeprecate the sysctl system call

[Cal Peake <cp@absolutedigital.net>]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Andrew Morton wrote:

> yes, it appears that we screwed that up, but I haven't got around to thinking about
> it yet.

Well, here's a patch that hopefully solves the mess :)

From: Cal Peake <cp@absolutedigital.net>

Undeprecate the sysctl system call and default to always include it with 
the option for embedded folks to exclude it. Also, remove it's entry from 
the feature removal file.

Signed-off-by: Cal Peake <cp@absolutedigital.net>

--- ./init/Kconfig~orig	2006-10-17 17:54:09.000000000 -0400
+++ ./init/Kconfig	2006-10-17 18:49:36.000000000 -0400
@@ -303,20 +303,20 @@ config UID16
 
 config SYSCTL_SYSCALL
 	bool "Sysctl syscall support" if EMBEDDED
-	default n
+	default y
 	select SYSCTL
 	---help---
-	  Enable the deprecated sysctl system call.  sys_sysctl uses
-	  binary paths that have been found to be a major pain to maintain
-	  and use.  The interface in /proc/sys is now the primary and what
-	  everyone uses.
-
-	  Nothing has been using the binary sysctl interface for some
-	  time now so nothing should break if you disable sysctl syscall
-	  support, and your kernel will get marginally smaller.
+	  This option allows you to specify whether or not to build into
+	  your kernel support for the sysctl system call.  You can disable
+	  this if you are building a kernel for a system with limited
+	  resources (e.g. an embedded device) and your kernel image will
+	  shrink by a few kilobytes.
+
+	  NOTE: Disabling this option will cause a warning to be printed
+	        if a program attempts to use this system call.
 
-	  Unless you have an application that uses the sys_sysctl interface
- 	  you should probably say N here.
+	  If you are sure your userspace enviroment has no need for this
+	  system call you can say N here.
 
 config KALLSYMS
 	 bool "Load all symbols for debugging/kksymoops" if EMBEDDED
--- ./Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt~orig	2006-10-17 17:54:04.000000000 -0400
+++ ./Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt	2006-10-17 18:10:35.000000000 -0400
@@ -53,18 +53,6 @@ Who:	Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brtu
 
 ---------------------------
 
-What:	sys_sysctl
-When:	January 2007
-Why:	The same information is available through /proc/sys and that is the
-	interface user space prefers to use. And there do not appear to be
-	any existing user in user space of sys_sysctl.  The additional
-	maintenance overhead of keeping a set of binary names gets
-	in the way of doing a good job of maintaining this interface.
-
-Who:	Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
-
----------------------------
-
 What:	PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
 When:	November 2005
 Files:	drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
-
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