From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Shaohua Li Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 1/5] add metadata_incore ioctl in vfs Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:48:33 +0800 Message-ID: <1295491713.1949.898.camel@sli10-conroe> References: <1295399718.1949.864.camel@sli10-conroe> <20110119124158.b0348c44.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <1295490647.1949.890.camel@sli10-conroe> <20110119184240.b0a6a016.akpm@linux-foundation.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20110119184240.b0a6a016.akpm@linux-foundation.org> Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Andrew Morton Cc: "linux-btrfs@vger.kernel.org" , "linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org" , Chris Mason , Christoph Hellwig , Arjan van de Ven , "Yan, Zheng" , "Wu, Fengguang" , linux-api , manpages List-Id: linux-api@vger.kernel.org On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 10:42 +0800, Andrew Morton wrote: > On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:30:47 +0800 Shaohua Li wrote: > > > > I don't know if this is worth addressing. Perhaps require that the > > > filp refers to the root of the fs? > > I didn't see why this is needed, but I can limit the fip to the root of > > the fs. > > I don't think it matters much either. The only problem I can see is if > we were to later try to extend the ioctl into a per-file thing. since we return page range, a metadata page might be shared by several files, which makes the per-file thing doesn't work. For a fs using trees, it's even more hard to distinguish a file's metadata > > > Also, is this a privileged operation? If not, then that might be a > > > problem - could it be used by unprivileged users to work out which > > > files have been opened recently or something like that? > > it's harmless even a unprivileged user uses it. I don't think > > unprivileged user can decode the data returned from the ioctl. > > um. > > Well, by doing a before-and-after thing I can use this ioctl to work > out what metadata blocks are used when someone reads > /my/super/secret-directory/foo. Then I can write a program which sits > there waiting until someone else reads /my/super/secret-directory/foo. > Then I can use that information to start WWIII or something. > > I dunno, strange things happen. Unless there's a good *need* to make > this available to unprivileged users then we should not do so. ok, looks interesting, I'll update the patch to limit unprivileged users. Thanks, Shaohua