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Date:      Thu, 07 Oct 1999 07:41:06 +0100
From:      Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org>
To:        Pat Dirks <pwd@apple.com>
Cc:        "Brian Somers" <brian@Awfulhak.org>, "FreeBSD Hackers" <FreeBSD-Hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Apple's planned appoach to permissions on movable filesystems 
Message-ID:  <199910070641.HAA00312@hak.lan.Awfulhak.org>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 06 Oct 1999 16:51:17 PDT." <199910062351.QAA21704@scv3.apple.com> 

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> >[.....]
> >> Instead we decided to leave all name <-> ID mapping systems unchanged and 
> >> rely on a distinction between "local" filesystems whose permissions 
> >> information should be used and a "foreign" filesystem mode where owner 
> >> and group IDs are ignored.
> >[.....]
> >
> >I think the owner and group of the person that mounted the filesystem 
> >should be assigned to all files on that filesystem in FOREIGN mode.  
> >-u and -g switches should be permitted to modify these, the -u being 
> >restricted to root and the -g restricted to root or one of the groups 
> >to which you are a member.
> >
> >This assumes the BSD style I-must-have-permission-to-read-and-write-
> >the-raw-partitiion style filesystem mounting by users.  It would have 
> >horrendous implications with the linux-style fstab-says-anyone-can-
> >mount-this idea.  But then, you already mention this later on :-]
> >
> >The filesystem code would also mask all suid bits and ignore all 
> >char/device files on FOREIGN media (as you've already said too).
> 
> What do you see as the advantage of explicitly assigning ownership to the 
> mounting user/group?  The effect should be the same in either case?  I 
> suppose it allows an intereting middle-level of access to the group in 
> question?
[.....]

Well, the idea is that if I personally ``own'' the media, I'll want 
to put the appropriate permissions on files (eg, my private pgp key) 
and then carry it 'round in my back pocket.  I want to be able to 
access that 0600 file after mounting the media and I don't want 
anyone else to.  I think this is ability would be a big plus

In the case of root, they should be able to do all this for any user 
- they can anyway by simply switching uids.

Another thing that now occurs to me is that it should probably be 
possible for root to mount the disk as `user fred' but with groups 
as they are on the disk (and see below) - ie, I'm moving a disk from 
one system to another and those systems share the same groups, but 
not the users.

> In the case of Mac OS X we've got a daemon in the system looking for new 
> disks being inserted/attached and doing the mount.  We still want the 
> console user to have "ownership" of the filesystem in "foreign" mode.
[.....]

Ah, ok, so all files belong to that user - I didn't realise you'd 
said that.  This is what I'm after too, but the group side of things 
should be dealt with too so that I can give others group permissions 
to various bits on my disk.

Thinking about it, -g should probably allow some sort of mapping 
syntax where I can say map gid x to gid y and map gid a to gid b 
where I'm a member of groups y and b.  By default, map no groups 
(everything's owned by the magical nobody to which nobody is a 
member)....

-- 
Brian <brian@Awfulhak.org>                        <brian@FreeBSD.org>
      <http://www.Awfulhak.org>;                   <brian@OpenBSD.org>
Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour !          <brian@FreeBSD.org.uk>




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