On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Curtis Anderson wrote:
> Andreas Gruenbacher wrote:
> > On Thu, 26 Oct 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > For an existing API (which I am not proposing be taken as is) take a look
> > > at the xfs man pages here:
> > >
> > > http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/manpages.html
> >
> > Sorry, but I think the root namespace is a serious misdesign. The root
> > user shouldn't be treated specially at all. In a system that fully
> > supports capabilities, it's actually possible for root to have no
> > permissions whatsoever. Allowing root to manipulate EAs of files
> > effectively makes root omnipotent again (by manipulating the capabilities
> > of files, etc.)
>
> Keep in mind that XFS EA's were designed before ACLs made it into IRIX.
> Having said that, I agree with you that the root namespace does not mix
> well with ACLs. I like the idea of user, system, and trusted namespaces.
That's good to hear.
> > Also, XFS has two separate namespaces. Merging them (and keeping the
> > namespace information in a name prefix) would be a good thing as it would
> > simplify the interface. Attributes from multiple namespaces would be
> > brought into context by their name only. Otherwise, [1342]acl and
> > [4742]acl might look very similar, but indeed they would describe entirely
> > different things.
>
> Even though it makes life more difficult, I like the idea of very separate
> namespaces for separate types of things. The worst case is when a user
> application wants to create an attribute named "foo" but that name has
> already been used by a system or trusted entity. Putting error recovery
> algorithms inside applications to resolve attribute namespace collisions
> is ugly and the API should be set up to avoid them if possible.
Not what I had in mind. A user is only allowed to create an attribute
named "user.foo". (Perhaps the user prefix could be hidden for
convenience, but that's the principle). For XFS, we would have "user.*"
and "root.*". Attribute names don't overlap any more than they do now.
It's just a different representation for basically the same thing.
Andreas.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andreas Gruenbacher, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contact information: http://www.bestbits.at/~ag/
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