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From: Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>
To: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu>,
	jeremy@goop.org, jengelh@computergmbh.de, viro@ftp.linux.org.uk,
	nmiell@comcast.net, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: *at syscalls for xattrs?
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 05:47:46 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <469B3EC2.8080702@garzik.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <469B3B73.9010400@zytor.com>

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Miklos Szeredi wrote:
>> The *at() thing basically gives you the advantages of a CWD without
>> the disadvantages.
>>
>> For example it could be useful to implement the functionality of
>> find(1) as a library interface.
>>
> 
> What the *at() interfaces really do is fix/paper over a longstanding
> wart in Unix: the cwd really should have been a standard file descriptor
> (like stdin/stdout/stderr) instead of a magic piece of state maintained
> in kernel space.

It's more than a wart, IMO.  *at() allows one to close races (with 
potential security implications) that are otherwise impossible to close, 
in directory traversal.

*at() permits a userspace program to hold proper references to all 
objects during a directory traversal, with all that implies.

	Jeff




  reply	other threads:[~2007-07-16  9:48 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 15+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2007-07-15 19:46 *at syscalls for xattrs? Jan Engelhardt
2007-07-15 20:53 ` Al Viro
2007-07-15 21:13   ` Nicholas Miell
2007-07-15 22:23     ` Al Viro
2007-07-15 23:09       ` H. Peter Anvin
2007-07-16  7:56       ` Jan Engelhardt
2007-07-16  8:04         ` Al Viro
2007-07-16  8:30         ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2007-07-16  9:05           ` Miklos Szeredi
2007-07-16  9:33             ` H. Peter Anvin
2007-07-16  9:47               ` Jeff Garzik [this message]
2007-07-16 17:57                 ` H. Peter Anvin
2007-07-16 20:03                   ` Jeff Garzik
2007-07-16 20:40                     ` H. Peter Anvin
2007-07-16  9:12           ` Andreas Schwab

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