Messages in this thread | ![/](/images/icornerl.gif) | | Subject | Re: Implementing Meta File information in Linux | Date | Tue, 15 Sep 1998 18:21:41 -0300 | From | "Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH" <> |
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In message <XFMail.980915112121.jsgf@sirius.com>, Jeremy Fitzhardinge writes: +----- | Per-file metadata should strictly contain information pertinent to that file | alone, such as type, encoding, (maybe) icon, etc. Things like position on the +--->8
Default icon, certainly. Users could override that, but that is not appropriate to store with/on/in the file itself in a multiuser setting.
| The question then becomes whether to also have per-file preference attributes | in every file a user touches, or to have some kind of database per user with | all their file preferences in it (with all the associated difficulties of | keeping it in sync, identifying files, etc, etc). +--->8
Another problem with the former is that it's highly questionable whether a user should be allowed to affect metadata "attached" (in some sense) to a file to which they don't have write access. This is especially important if a kernel-based metadata solution is used: do we really want the permissions on the metadata fork to be different from the data fork? I don't think so. And with a separate-but-nearby metadata model (e.g. dot-directories) you would have to grant world write permission to the directory in which the metadata are stored; this also doesn't appeal (think /etc/passwd). But denying the user the ability to store metadata about the file also seems wrong.
A per-user metadata database has its problems, yes, but it doesn't raise potential security issues.
| Are there any multiuser systems which address the problems of per-user | preference info stored in file attributes? +--->8
I think you'd have to ask the NeXTSteppers or BeOSers or maybe someone who's seen what Mac OS X is doing. NT went with the database approach, of course (the registry... and look what kind of problems that causes!),
-- brandon s. allbery [os/2][linux][solaris][japh] allbery@kf8nh.apk.net system administrator [WAY too many hats] allbery@ece.cmu.edu electrical and computer engineering KF8NH carnegie mellon university
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