Re: backward compat / access (was Re: Benchmarks)

From: Crispin Cowan (crispinat_private)
Date: Wed Apr 18 2001 - 10:03:24 PDT

  • Next message: Crispin Cowan: "Re: Hook function suggestion"

    Seth Arnold wrote:
    
    > * Luc Pardon <lucpat_private> [010418 01:02]:
    > > 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.
    >
    > While I think I understand the reasoning involved, I know *I* would like
    > to keep Linux as source-compatible with other Unix-like and Unix
    > operating systems as possible. A mess of new syscalls (or one new
    > syscall with a generic interface and many library wrappers) would only
    > encourage non-standard code.
    
    I see all of this as being part & parcel of module design, not
    LSM interface design.  If you wanna write a module that provides this
    functionality, go right ahead.  It will not be standard, and thus most
    applications won't use that functionality.  But the freedom to do so is
    exactly what LSM is about.
    
    
    > Furthermore, I don't know if requiring the module to support such query
    > interfaces is a good idea either -- the policy a module may desire to
    > implement may wish to restrict this sort of information. Requiring the
    > module to support query interfaces would leak this information, going
    > against the module's design policy.
    
    What LSM should be supporting is sufficient hooks to write such an
    interface.  Even that is tentative:  I want to see an actual module that
    needs this functionality before it goes into the LSM interface.
    
    Crispin
    
    --
    Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
    Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
    Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
    
    
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