/proc/speakup

[Geoff Shang]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Steve Holmes wrote:

> I thought I heard a while back that only root could update these files.
> Is that so?

That is not so.  The files in /proc/speakup apart from the exceptions
discussed earlier today can be updated by any user on the system.  There
are some files in /proc/speakup/<synth> (where <synth> is the currently
used synth) which contain data that, if modified, might cause serious
damage to the system.  These files therefore can only be modified by root.

Since the proc file system is only a vertual file system, commands like
chmod and chown do not actually work, even though they return without
errors.  The permissions have to be set as part of the speakup code.  Jim
and I discussed alternative access methods for these files, but the choices
seem to be access for all or access for no-one except root, without making
it a configurable option in either the kernel command line or perhaps the
kernel config.  Personally, I'd be quite happy to see all this be root
access only, but I can understand why people might want to be able to
change synth settings in user-space.

Geoff.