From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040510 Description of problem: 1) We need to access kernel virtual memory and we do it through /dev/kmem. But there is no /dev/kmem in the above mentioned kernel series. 2) We need /proc/kallsyms also, so that we can get the address (in the kernel virtual memory) of a symbol from it and then go to that offset in /dev/kmem to get the symbol. In short, we need both /dev/kmem and /proc/kallsyms to be present. Q1) Do we need to follow certain steps for /dev/kmem to get created when the kernel boots? Q2) If either of these is not going to be provided by RedHat, then could you please suggest alternatives? Thanks. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 2.6.9-5.EL, 2.6.9-6.26.ELsmp (amongst others of the same series) How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install RHEL4 by an FTP installation. Just follow the steps as promted. 2. Find that /dev/kmem does not exist. Additional info:
This is an issue on i686 as well as x86_64.
Q1. /dev/kmem support was intentionally removed, as it served no practical purpose other than to serve as a potential security problem (by allowing root users to modify kernel memory), or to enable binary module drivers to access structures/functions they shouldn't be touching. Q2. Only use exported functions.