Re: Linux patches to solve /tmp race problem

From: Chris Wright (chrisat_private)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 15:30:42 PDT

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    * Donaldson, Matthew (matthewat_private) wrote:
    > Hi all,
    >
    > I have recently developed some patches to the Linux 2.2 kernels which solve
    > the /tmp race problem without needing to define environment variables -
    > useful particularly for naive applications and scripts which dont use
    > TMPDIR and friends.
    >
    > The patch creates "dynamic" symlinks, which point to different paths
    > depending on the user accessing them (for example, including the UID in the
    > path name).  Such a link can be placed instead of /tmp and/or /var/tmp, and
    > any other similar directories.  More usefully, these links can be configured
    > to automatically create the directory they refer to if it does not exist.
    >
    > This means you can create a directory such as /tmp_files, for example, and
    > have the /tmp link automatically create user directories in it on demand.
    > Default permissions and ownership can be specified.
    >
    > The patches are available from http://www.datadeliverance.com in the Linux
    > Patches section, along with a full discussion of the issues involved.  Your
    > comments on the scheme are invited.
    
    After reading the explanation of your work, I missed how you can actually have
    global data in the /tmp directory.  For example, /tmp/.font-unix or
    /tmp/.X11-unix.
    
    -chris
    



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