Please note that the "Quickstarters guide to procfs programming" is part of the driver and is not available for download separately.
Basically, you can use this to assigne any hardware id to an application that thinks it cannot live with what your system provides as the default. This is mostly the case when you restore a backup to a new hard disk or want to change your Ethernet card while some application depend on the mac address or the drive id of the old hardware.
An other thing is security. There are some commercial programs out in the wild, that try to send personal information to people you don't trust or even know. Sending hardware IDs is a popular way to track users through the WEB. If you have to use such software, this module helps you to decide what information you want to give out.
The new version contains a feature that records all accesses to hardware IDs and present this to the user via the procfs interface.
- IDE drive IDs
- MAC addresses of Ethernet cards
The module is a very small and readable piece of source demonstrating system call interception and use of the proc file system. If you want to add proc file system support for you own driver you might want to take a look at this module.
I wrote a little tutorial on how to use the procfs in kernel 2.4. It is called "Quickstarters guide to procfs programming" and could be useful to people how want to add procfs support to there own modules. The file is written in LaTeX and includes parts of the module source code. Please check out the current CVS or the tar ball to read it.
- Why don't older MAC settings work with newer kernels?
New kernel releases changed the size of the MAC field entry. You simply have to add zeros to your old settings to make it work with newer kernel versions. A tail -f /var/log/messages shows you the expected number of digits.- Can I use this driver to run stolen commercial software XXX on my Linux box?
Don't ask! I do not support software piracy. Please use this driver only if you have a legal license for your software but have to work around technical difficulties with your license manager.- Removing the list entries in */mac or */ide sometimes causes kernel oops. What's wrong?
This problem should be fixed in the current version.THE INTENTION OF THIS SOFTWARE IS TO MAKE BACKUPS WORK AND SOFTWARE INSTALLATION MORE PAINLESS. HOWEVER, MAKING BACKUPS IS FOR SOME STUPID REASONS ILLEGAL IN MANY COUNTRIES. NEITHER THE AUTHOR NOR SOURCEFORGE CAN BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY USE OR MISUSE OF THIS SOFTWARE. MOREOVER, USING THIS SOFTWARE IS COMPLETELY AT YOUR OWN RISK WITH NO GUARANTEES AT ALL.