The sysctl registration APIs do not need a terminating table entry
anymore and with commit acc154691fc7 ("sysctl: Warn on an empty procname element")
even emit warnings if such a sentinel entry is supplied.

While at it also remove the mention of "table->de" which was removed in
commit 3fbfa98112fc ("[PATCH] sysctl: remove the proc_dir_entry member for the sysctl tables")
back in 2007.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh <linux@weissschuh.net>
---
 include/linux/sysctl.h | 6 ++----
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/sysctl.h b/include/linux/sysctl.h
index aa4c6d44aaa0..47ca2536865b 100644
--- a/include/linux/sysctl.h
+++ b/include/linux/sysctl.h
@@ -90,9 +90,7 @@ int proc_do_static_key(const struct ctl_table *table, int write, void *buffer,
 
 /*
  * Register a set of sysctl names by calling register_sysctl
- * with an initialised array of struct ctl_table's.  An entry with 
- * NULL procname terminates the table.  table->de will be
- * set up by the registration and need not be initialised in advance.
+ * with an initialised array of struct ctl_table's.
  *
  * sysctl names can be mirrored automatically under /proc/sys.  The
  * procname supplied controls /proc naming.
@@ -133,7 +131,7 @@ static inline void *proc_sys_poll_event(struct ctl_table_poll *poll)
 
 /* A sysctl table is an array of struct ctl_table: */
 struct ctl_table {
-	const char *procname;		/* Text ID for /proc/sys, or zero */
+	const char *procname;		/* Text ID for /proc/sys */
 	void *data;
 	int maxlen;
 	umode_t mode;

---
base-commit: 34ac1e82e5a78d5ed7f647766f5b1b51ca4d983a
change-id: 20240810-sysctl-procname-null-comment-80160bd4089f

Best regards,
-- 
Thomas Weißschuh <linux@weissschuh.net>

On Sat, Aug 10, 2024 at 07:00:35PM +0200, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> The sysctl registration APIs do not need a terminating table entry
> anymore and with commit acc154691fc7 ("sysctl: Warn on an empty procname element")
> even emit warnings if such a sentinel entry is supplied.
> 
> While at it also remove the mention of "table->de" which was removed in
> commit 3fbfa98112fc ("[PATCH] sysctl: remove the proc_dir_entry member for the sysctl tables")
> back in 2007.

I queued this for next release with a slight change in the line lengths
to make checkpatch happy. Try to make the paragraphs up to 75 chars next
time

Thx

-- 

Joel Granados

On Sat, Aug 10, 2024 at 07:00:35PM +0200, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> The sysctl registration APIs do not need a terminating table entry
> anymore and with commit acc154691fc7 ("sysctl: Warn on an empty procname element")
> even emit warnings if such a sentinel entry is supplied.
> 
> While at it also remove the mention of "table->de" which was removed in
> commit 3fbfa98112fc ("[PATCH] sysctl: remove the proc_dir_entry member for the sysctl tables")
> back in 2007.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh <linux@weissschuh.net>

Thanks!

Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>

If you're already poking around at these things, it might also be nice
to add full kern-doc for these APIs and structs.

-- 
Kees Cook