Re: [PATCH] fs: call security_d_instantiate in d_obtain_alias

["J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@fieldses.org>]

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 12:28:09AM -0500, David Quigley wrote:
> [snip]
> >If you have persistent xattr support we need the dentry since the xattr
> >code requires a dentry.  I have no idea why but that's what
> >inode->i_op->getxattr() requires.
> >
> 
> The original reason that the xattr operations take dentries is
> because of p9fs and CIFS. CIFS uses the name of the file to grab the
> extended attributes and so does p9fs. I had tried to remove this a
> while ago but couldn't find a way around that.

Both CIFS and FUSE are NFS-exportable, so both allow lookup by
filehandle, so neither can count on getting a filename at this point.

So, out of curiosity, do we know what will happen when selinux asks one
of them for an xattr on a DCACHE_DISCONNECTED dentry?

> When trying to find a
> solution I also got push back from Miklos (FUSE) as he views a
> filesystem being able to make xattr decisions based on the path name
> being a valid use-case.

So selinux may initialize an inode differently depending on which
pathname it happened to be looked up under first?

Factoring the name into the xattr return sounds scary to me.

--b.