I'm on etch and I can't read /proc/kmsg no matter how I set the permissions. Take a look: mmiller@xpc5:~$ sudo chmod a+r /proc/kmsg mmiller@xpc5:~$ sudo ls -l /proc/kmsg -r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 2007-01-15 17:55 /proc/kmsg mmiller@xpc5:~$ whoami mmiller mmiller@xpc5:~$ cat /proc/kmsg cat: /proc/kmsg: Operation not permitted Why does the 'cat' fail?