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From: veit@mururoa.gmd.de (Holger Veit)
Subject: Re: Some ideas on the driver interface (New idea!)
Message-ID: <1993Mar22.140045.206@gmd.de>
Sender: veit@mururoa (Holger Veit)
Nntp-Posting-Host: mururoa.gmd.de
Organization: GMD - German National Research Center for Computer Science
References: <1993Mar17.122612.5929@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> <1o9l9u$nn@tricky.wft.stack.urc.tue.nl> <1993Mar19.074044.18995@gmd.de> <C45H42.8L1@sugar.neosoft.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 14:00:45 GMT
Lines: 35
In article <C45H42.8L1@sugar.neosoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
|> In article <1993Mar19.074044.18995@gmd.de> veit@mururoa.gmd.de (Holger Veit) writes:
|> > Why would *you* want to modify *default* protections in a system?
|>
|> Because the defaults don't implement the policy and behaviour I want?
|>
|> Is this a trick question, or do we have some communication problem here?
Not at all. Perhaps the "you" shouldn't have been emphasized. What I meant was
"you" as a user in contrast to an application program or the kernel defaults.
Shortly: Unlike other files or directories, a user or sysadmin normally does not
have the need to modify the access rights of typical devices. Some devices
would introduce severe security problems if opened to the community, so they
have -rw------- root wheel, for instance. You might change the group to bin or sys,
if you like, but there is no real need for it IMHO (at least not every some
days or between the interval you need to reboot a new kernel). Tty devices might
be an exception, because they inherit the ownership of the process that controls them.
This is accomplished by the support of the chmod/chown vfs call in the devfs, so it
is possible to modify the rights, if it would be really necessary.
However, in contrast to you (I read this from your reply), I think that one shouldn't
implement anything just for the case it could be perhaps necessary in some future.
It is a strange argumentation to assume that the defaults which you can determine
with your kernel are not sufficient for your needs and require changing.
Holger
|> Peter da Silva. <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
--
Dr. Holger Veit | INTERNET: Holger.Veit@gmd.de
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