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Date:      Sun, 16 Jul 2000 01:29:41 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Brian Fundakowski Feldman <green@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Robert Watson <robert@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: SysctlFS
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0007160116310.877-100000@green.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1000715225806.23943A-100000@fledge.watson.org>

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On Sat, 15 Jul 2000, Robert Watson wrote:
> > 
> > Unless you can think of anything else that could possibly be the
> > canonical namespace, struct vnode *rootvnode.
> 
> On Coda diskless workstations, we have a kernel with an MFSROOT, and then
> chroot processes to under the Coda tree.  This technique is probably used
> in other environments also (possibly NFS diskless boxes, et al?).  One of
> the traditional ambiguities in UNIX has been the nature of the root
> directory -- it is defined specifically in the context of a process.
> Chroot'd processes can chroot, and spawn processes that can then chroot.
> Right there you can see three potential "real" root directories. :-)  Now
> imagine that jail() supported nesting...

Yes, but there is always a mount entry for "/", and that is called
rootvnode.  If you'd prefer to think of it that way, it's often the
same as proc0.p_fd->fd_fd.fd_rdir.  We will always have a canonical
root directory un{til,less} we move toward the Plan-9 design of
per-process mount tables.  If jail() supported a "breakout", it
should only be to the canonical root, the first root, I believe.

> That's one reason why I find the idea of absolute symlinks outside of the
> chroot environment uncomfortable, and prefer some sort of light-weight
> mount mechanism, or run-time constructed specialized links or the like,
> rather than name-based construction.

Well, it's just an idea.  I fear there won't be a more elegant way of
doing it short of per-process mount tables :)

>   Robert N M Watson 
> 
> robert@fledge.watson.org              http://www.watson.org/~robert/
> PGP key fingerprint: AF B5 5F FF A6 4A 79 37  ED 5F 55 E9 58 04 6A B1
> TIS Labs at Network Associates, Safeport Network Services

--
 Brian Fundakowski Feldman           \  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve!  /
 green@FreeBSD.org                    `------------------------------'



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