Re: viewprinting: what format should views be stored in?

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

Lamont R. Peterson wrote:

>On Fri, 2004-08-20 at 00:19, Hans Reiser wrote:
>  
>
>>George Beshers wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>>>Masked Processes
>>>>>- May not create hard links.
>>>>>- Child processes [of a masked process] must inherit the parent's 
>>>>> "mask bit" and mask definition.
>>>>> 
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>remind me - what is the mask tied to? UID/GID, EUID, PID, PGID? 
>>>>filesystem?
>>>>Hans actually says it's derived from the executable.
>>>>What if it changes between two processes starting?
>>>>Does the running processes mask change? (cf chmod a file - seems 
>>>>reasonable but...)
>>>>I'd think it needs to be pretty atomic...
>>>>In fact, maybe changing masks on a running (mounted?) system is a 
>>>>potential security hole and forbidden?
>>>>I think I could think of race examples.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>I am disinclined to tackle changing masks on the fly until I have a 
>>>compelling story
>>>to justify the work.
>>>      
>>>
>>It is less work to allow changing them on the fly than to not do so, 
>>since they are stored in the fs, not something loaded into the process 
>>state.
>>    
>>
>
>Yes.
>
>Additionally, if they could not be changed "on-the-fly", then in
>practical terms this would force an admin to restart a daemon when a
>change is made.  That would not be very friendly.
>  
>
Yes, and actually, part of our objective is to allow for incremental 
improvements/refinements to the masks as we discover more files that the 
blackbox binary needs.