From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755467Ab0CHTTL (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 Mar 2010 14:19:11 -0500 Received: from zeniv.linux.org.uk ([195.92.253.2]:51542 "EHLO ZenIV.linux.org.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755435Ab0CHTS4 (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 Mar 2010 14:18:56 -0500 Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 19:18:41 +0000 From: Al Viro To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Alan Cox , Ingo Molnar , James Morris , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Kyle McMartin , Alexander Viro Subject: Re: Upstream first policy Message-ID: <20100308191841.GM30031@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> References: <20100308094647.GA14268@elte.hu> <20100308173008.7ae389ab@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20100308184521.GK30031@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-08-17) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, Mar 08, 2010 at 10:59:11AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > I'm not fond of selinux, to put it mildly, but "pathname-based" stuff simply > > doesn't match how the pathname resolution is defined on Unix... > > Again, I'm not claiming that we should change how "open" works and has > always worked. I don't even understand why you have that crazy "either or" > mentality to begin with. Why? > > It's not "either pathname or inode". I'm saying _both_ make sense. > > In some situations, the name itself really is what is fundamentally > special about the file. And mapping from names to files is a function of contents of many objects. You need to protect that contents on all objects involved *anyway*. Which leaves what for "protecting by pathname"? I'm not saying that it's either or. I am saying that it's been oversold to hell and back, BTW, but that's a separate story. And I'm very sceptical about separate protection of different directory entries, which is *all* that is left for pathname-based stuff, AFAICS.