From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Randy.Dunlap" Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 14:22:00 +0000 Subject: Re: Network protocol for linux-hotplug. Message-Id: List-Id: References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: linux-hotplug@vger.kernel.org Dmitri wrote: > > Quoting Stamatis Mitrofanis : > > > It had occurred to me that it might be a good idea to make things such > > that unsatisfied hotplug requests are forwarded through the network to > > certain database servers. > > > This automatic-downloading system must be very small, very uniform and > > very simple to implement. Questions that need answers: > > > - What protocol do we use for communication of the user system with the > > server system? (must be well-known and standard) > > http:// and nothing else. This is because of firewalls and proxies > that are capable of handling it. Other protocols/ports are often > blocked from leaving intranets. Also, all http:// infrastructure is > already available and widely deployed, allowing easy mirroring. > > > - How do we organize scripts and programs to do the job? > > wget http://www.kernel.org/cgi-bin/getdriver?bus=usb&pid=0x1234&vid=0x5678 > tar xzvf usb_0x1234_0x5678.tar.gz > cd usb_0x1234_0x5678 && make && make install > > > - What will be the formats for drivers downloaded from the net? > > likely, tarballs - but .rpm or .deb is also OK, as long as the originator > of the request asked for them, *and* as long as they are available. This > means that the script has to know how to fall back to the tarball. > > > - > > Add mandatory signatures to all packages, and mandatory checking of > said signatures vs. hardcoded list of identities (public keys). > This means that only holders of these keys can publish drivers. > Otherwise this will be insecure, to put it mildly :-) I must strongly agree with Dmitri's last statement. Without some form of security checking, this scheme is a huge open hole for danger. But like Keith said, source code is the only form that scales and works on all types of platforms, at least right now. ~Randy _______________________________________________ Linux-hotplug-devel mailing list http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net Linux-hotplug-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-hotplug-devel