Luc Pardon wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Some thoughts from a humble programmer.
>
> > We're not trying to add "will I be able to do
> > this" syscalls !
> > Not that it wouldn't be usefull (though I don't have
> > any example in mind right now),
>
> An application developer may want to inform the user that (s)he
> doesn't have sufficient rights to do something, without actually attempt
> to do that "something" and set off all kinds of alarms. Sysadmins hate
> false alarms (rightly so), and tend to extend that feeling to the users
In most cases that I can think of, I'd be just as interested in the query
for appropriate permissions as the actual attempt.
You must be thinking of programs that let user joe configure the firewall.
IMHO this is a systems administration issue. The same goes for security
policies: the LKM implementing a particular policy will have to live up
to the expectation from a *technical* point of view, but the actual
policy issues are userspace or office space. ;-)
> that provoke them. Compare it to the "this program must be run as root"
> message that many utitities issue.
>
> This is assuming that security violations would be logged, or at least
> there is a facility to do this logging, e.g.:
>
> if (is_xyz_allowed(&xyz_info) == OVER_MY_DEAD_BODY)
> {
> log_invalid_xyz_attempt(&xyz_info);
> return BAD_BAD_BAD;
> }
> // else it was a YES_GO_AHEAD
> // .. business as usual
Looks like a broken application or an insane security policy to me. ;-)
Cheers,
Buddy
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