Quoting "Alexander G. M. Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: <snip />
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on Mon, 22 Sep 2003 14:28:30 +0100: > > * Will > > > > chmod u-rwx somefile; chmod u+rwx somefile > > > > still work? What special-case behaviour will be needed to make it work? > > Likely via the Janus (two faced) view of the file system as ordinary files > and directories for old software. Ideally new versions of ls, chmod (or a > completely new permission system), etc, would be needed for native use. > The question wasn't "Will there still be a chmod?". Of course there can still be a chmod call in the legacy interface, or a chmodlike "convenience method" call in the new one. The question is whether the subfile metadata system will be compatible with permissions systems in which a user is able to revoke his own permissions to a file and then return them again - such as the current Unix permissions system - and what bodges you would accept to make it compatible. Be more specific - in all these questions, the devil shows itself in the detail. > > * Will it be possible to make a attribute file the child of > > /pub/some_ordinary_directory via a hard link? Will it be possible to make > an > > attribute file into an attribute file for some other file? That has > completely > > different permissions? And is owned by a different user? What will have to > > happen, in either case, at the time the file is hard-linked to its new > parent? > > Attributes are files (actually what I call fildirute Things - file directory > and attribute all at once) like any other Thing. So presumably the same hard > linking and permission rights apply to them as you already have for > conventional files I agree that attribute files should be files like any other. So attribute files should certainly have the same linking and permissions rights as any other file. How would you implement that? >(the permission is part of the fildirute Thing, perhaps > via a plug-in). <snip /> If attribute files have a different permissions system to all other files, how are they files like any other? If a file is both an attribute file and a child of /pub/some_ordinary_directory , should it have the permissions system of an ordinary file or an attribute file? What are the consequences of either choice? If an attribute file's permissions metadata is part of it, is the attribute file really a simple sequence of bytes like any other file? If it is, then what will prevent any user with write permissions to the attribute file from changing the part of the file that records its permissions metadata to whatever she wishes? As to my third question, how would a user go about changing the owner of a file? How might she be prevented from doing so? > - Alex Leo. ----------------------------------------------------------------- University of St Andrews Webmail: http://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk
