Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 03 Mar 2000 00:34:14 -0600 | From | Matthew Vanecek <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] devfs and symlinks--2.3.48 |
| |
Richard Gooch wrote: > > Jamie Lokier writes: > > Richard Gooch wrote: > > > Symlink permissions should not matter. The kernel doesn't care, and > > > neither should applications. If some application out there is doing > > > lstat(2), I'd rather break it and see it fixed, since it's probably > > > broken in other ways too. > > > > For procfs, symlink permissions do matter. > > Procfs is special in that way. For devfs, it doesn't matter. >
If it doesn't matter so much, why not make them like every other symlink on the system (with the exception of that one in procfs, of course). My reasoning is, if it really does not matter, why take a chance on breaking someone else's program, simply out of stubbornness? That's just wrong. I mean, I'm sure it's extremely rare that someone would use lstat to access a device, but it could happen, I reckon. And that does not necessarily mean that that program is broken. I'm sure there are situations in which it would be preferable to use lstat over stat. Just because I don't know enough to actually *think* of such a situation, at this time, does not mean there isn't one.
So far, I haven't seen any explanation of why /dev symlinks are created the way they are. The only thing I can figure is that it's sheer orneriness, with no programatical foundation.
The little change I made to base.c only affects symlinks in the root of /dev--it doesn't descend into directories. Kinda weird--I thought devfs_mk_symlink was used for all symlinks in devfs. If you would tell me where I should add another mode bit, I'd be happy to make the changes to suit my personal preferences, and not tell anyone else about them...
Richard: BTW, you were mistaken about X--I couldn't find hide nor hair of a true lstat (there was one #define lstat(a,b) stat(a,b)--but I don't think that counts). No, the problem was the console.perms, used by pam. Oh, and /dev/tty is hardcoded. Just an FYI...that was on 3.3.6. Dammit, just so many things that can go wrong!! The challenge truly makes it interesting... :)
ciao, -- Matthew Vanecek Visit my Website at http://mysite.directlink.net/linuxguy For answers type: perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);' ***************************************************************** For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow except me. I'm always getting in the way of something...
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |