Re: reiser4 plugins

Hubert Chan
2005-07-06T20:15:21Z

On Tue, 05 Jul 2005 22:51:07 -0400, Horst von Brand <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl> said:

> Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> wrote:
>> On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 03:41:00 -0400, Chet Hosey <chosey@nauticom.net>
>> said:
>> > Horst von Brand wrote:
>> >> And who says that a normal user isn't allowed to annotate each and
>> >> every file with its purpose or something else?

>> Explain how you currently allow users to annotate arbitrary files.

> By keeping annotations /outside/ the files.

So if I want to share annotations, I have to look in 20 different
places?

> [...]

>> The situation is even better with file-as-dir. If the administrator
>> wants to allow users to edit the description metadata for the file
>> foo, the administrator can set the appropriate permissions for
>> foo/.../description, and keep foo read-only.

> So now root is responsible in exquisite detail for random other users
> being able to keep info about my files?

I can grant people permissions to write random info into my own files.
Or they can use unionfs if I don't grant them permissions.

Remember: the above argument was citing an advantage of file-as-dir over
packed files (storing metadata as a tar or zip file, similar to what
OpenOffice.org does, or even something like exif or id3). In a packed
file, I can't allow people to edit the description attribute without
allowing them to edit the entire file. With file-as-dir, I get much
finer grained permissions.

> [...]

>> Actually, you could use something like unionfs to allow users to keep
>> their own annotations without affecting everyone else's.

> Again, root has to mount that stuff for each and every user?

suid program that allows union mount into a directory within my own tree
(or just into any directory that I have write permissions should be
sufficiently secure).

--
Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
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