On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Kerry Baker wrote: [...]
> However, what this means for your initial question is that it looks like > you're buggered. No, I'm not. It wasn't a question. I was trying to point out that the "standard" Unix access permissions are not enough in the modern enterprise environment. This is because spontaneous collaborative groups do appear and disappear and under "standard" Unix is impossible to create them without some manual intervention from an authority. I don't know why these permissions were designed the way they are. Maybe ~25 years ago (somebody may correct me on the date) this wasn't considered a big issue (computer usage was much lower) or maybe it would have been too complex to implement (the machines were not powerful enough). > Unfortunately I have to admit that when it comes to file permissions > Microsoft has the better solution. Admitting a shortcoming is the first and necessary step toward correcting it :-) Various commercial Unix vendors have implemented various ACL systems. Linux itself have AFAIK at least 3 projects (the 2 already discussed + the NSA one). However AFAIK for at least some commercial Unix ACLs: they may be incompatible. This means that they may not work across NFS between different systems. Microsoft doesn't necessarily have the better solution. It's just that they are 1 vendor and don't have to deal with compatibility with another vendor's system. Imagine that you would have to deal only with e.g. Sun boxes. Then you could easily use their ACL without any problems. Apparently there was some effort to create a Posix ACL standard but it was abandoned. Maybe somebody else who knows better can comment on this. Cheers, -- Ryurick M. Hristev mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Manager University of Canterbury, Physics & Astronomy Dept., New Zealand
