From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265030AbUEYSP6 (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 May 2004 14:15:58 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265029AbUEYSPI (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 May 2004 14:15:08 -0400 Received: from prgy-npn1.prodigy.com ([207.115.54.37]:20112 "EHLO oddball.prodigy.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265023AbUEYSMr (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 May 2004 14:12:47 -0400 Message-ID: <40B38CEB.6000807@tmr.com> Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 14:14:03 -0400 From: Bill Davidsen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031208 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: root@chaos.analogic.com CC: "Laughlin, Joseph V" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Modifying kernel so that non-root users have some root capabilities References: <67B3A7DA6591BE439001F2736233351202B47E6F@xch-nw-28.nw.nos.boeing.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Richard B. Johnson wrote: > On Mon, 24 May 2004, Laughlin, Joseph V wrote: > > >>(not sure if this is a duplicate or not.. Apologies in advance.) >> >>I've been tasked with modifying a 2.4 kernel so that a non-root user can >>do the following: >> >>Dynamically change the priorities of processes (up and down) >>Lock processes in memory >>Can change process cpu affinity >> >>Anyone got any ideas about how I could start doing this? (I'm new to >>kernel development, btw.) >> >>Thanks, > > > You don't modify an operating system to do that!! You just make > a priviliged program (setuid) that does the things you want. Dick, it's called capabilities, and people have already modified the operating system to do that, it just doesn't work quite as intended in some cases. Setuid is the keys to the kingdom, you really don't want to use setuid root unless there's no other way. Remember when everything used to take the BKL? Then people saw a better way. Capabilities is the same kind of progression, save the big hammer for the big nail. -- -bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com) "The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the last possible moment - but no longer" -me