Re: overlayfs vs. fscrypt

Richard Weinberger
2019-03-13T13:32:08Z

Am Mittwoch, 13. März 2019, 14:24:47 CET schrieb Miklos Szeredi:
> > The use case is that you can delete these files if the DAC/MAC permissions allow it.
> > Just like on NTFS. If a user encrypts files, the admin cannot read them but can
> > remove them if the user is gone or loses the key.
>
> There's the underlying filesystem view where admin can delete files,
> etc. And there's the fscrypt layer stacked on top of the underlying
> fs, which en/decrypts files *in case the user has the key*. What if
> one user has a key, but the other one doesn't? Will d_revalidate
> constantly switch the set of dentries between the encrypted filenames
> and the decrypted ones? Sounds crazy. And the fact that NTFS does
> this doesn't make it any less crazy...

Well, I didn't come up with this feature. :-)

If one user has the key and the other not, a classic multi-user
system, then you need to make sure that the affected fscrypt instances
are not visible by both.
For example by using mount namespaces to make sure that user a can only
see /home/foo and user b only /home/bar.
Or removing the search permission on /home/foo and /home/bar.

I know, I know, but that's how it is...
Maybe Ted or Eric can give more details on why they chose this approach.

Thanks,
//richard