Re: Utilities don't take into account capabilities

[Linda Walsh <lkml@tlinx.org>]

Dale R. Worley wrote:
>
> I believe there's a complication...  I'm no expert, but I vaguely
> recall from some previous thread that there are situations where
> 'mount' isn't purely a front-end for the kernel mount() call.
> Instead, 'mount' wants to set up some things and then call mount().
>
> The example that comes to mind is setting up a file on a loopback
> device, then mounting the loopback device.  But I think there were
> other situations like this.
----
    In such cases, to execute the operation, check the max caps needed
to perform the operation. 
>
> The problem being, that 'mount' wants to verify that the mount() call
> will succeed *first* before attempting the set-up operations.  And
> some of the setup operations require root capabilities.
>
> There's also the complication of the "users" and "user=" options,
> which are to permit a user to do something he doesn't actually have
> the capabilities for.
----
      Separate issue.  I.e. should permission come from the entry in 
'fstab', or
should it come from what logins are set w/what caps.  I think (?) from 
historical
perspectives, the user is enabled to perform a specific operation if 
they are specifically
mentioned.  Else, go/w caps user has to complete successful operation.

    Would that cover it?