From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Ian McDonald" Subject: Re: [PATCH] Check if user has CAP_NET_ADMIN to change congestion control algorithm Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:59:30 +1300 Message-ID: <5640c7e00610261659g5816942ndaf4e09eb8110c9e@mail.gmail.com> References: <20061025110843.0cbd18a7@freekitty> <4540F076.70801@psc.edu> <20061026224407.GA2018@c3po.0xdef.net> <20061026235256.GB2018@c3po.0xdef.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.174]:16830 "EHLO ug-out-1314.google.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1946036AbWJZX7c (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Oct 2006 19:59:32 -0400 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id 32so543671ugm for ; Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:59:31 -0700 (PDT) To: "Hagen Paul Pfeifer" , "John Heffner" , "Stephen Hemminger" , "David S. Miller" , netdev@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20061026235256.GB2018@c3po.0xdef.net> Content-Disposition: inline Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On 10/27/06, Hagen Paul Pfeifer wrote: > > Check if user has CAP_NET_ADMIN capability to change congestion control > algorithm. > > Under normal circumstances a application programmer doesn't have enough > information to choose the "right" algorithm (expect he is the pchar/pathchar > maintainer). At 99.9% only the local host administrator has the knowledge to > select a proper standard, system-wide algorithm (the remaining 0.1% are > for testing purpose). If we let the user select an alternative algorithm we > introduce one potential weak spot - so we ban this eventuality. > I don't agree with this at all. I would love Firefox, BitTorrent etc to implement usage of TCP-LP for example so they use "unused" bandwidth only. With this change applications can't do this. If we are going to restrict by capabilities then I think we should only restrict module loading - this way the admin of the box can decide what algorithms can be used. Ian -- Ian McDonald Web: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4 Blog: http://imcdnzl.blogspot.com WAND Network Research Group Department of Computer Science University of Waikato New Zealand