Re: [PATCH 01/11] Security: Add hook to get full maclabel xattr name

Casey Schaufler
2008-02-29T01:26:26Z

--- Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no> wrote:

>
> On Thu, 2008-02-28 at 19:39 -0500, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 07:04:57PM -0500, Dave Quigley wrote:
> > > There are several things here. I've spoken to several people about this
> > > and the belief I've gotten from most of them is that a recommended
> > > attribute is how this is to be transported. The NFSv4 spec people will
> > > probably say that if you want xattr like functionality for NFSv4 use
> > > named attributes. For us this is not an option since we require
> > > semantics to label on create/open and the only way we can do this is by
> > > adding a recommended attribute. The create/open calls in NFSv4 takes a
> > > list of attributes to use on create as part of the request. I really
> > > don't see a difference between the security blob and the
> > > username/groupname that NFSv4 currently uses. Also there is a good
> > > chance that we will need to translate labels at some point (read future
> > > work).
> >
> > Then use the existing side-band protocol and ignore the NFSv4 spec
> > group. They're <skip colourful language here> anyway.
>
> As I've told you several times before: we're _NOT_ putting private
> ioctl^Hxattrs onto the wire. If the protocol can't be described in an
> RFC, then it isn't going in no matter what expletive you choose to
> use...

With the SGI supplied reference implementation it ought to be a
small matter of work to write an RFC. If the information weren't
SGI proprietary I could even tell you how long it ought to take
a junior engineer in Melbourne to write. The fact that there is
currently no RFC does not mean that there cannot be a RFC, only
that no one has written (or published) one yet.

Casey Schaufler
casey@schaufler-ca.com