Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 12 Apr 1999 11:18:47 -0700 (PDT) | From | David Lang <> | Subject | Re: ext3 to include capabilities? |
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For the issue of what would happen with an old kernel there are two possibilities that have been posted.
1. using the suid bit everything would work, but you would have potentially large security holes. (think of lilo being set for just the capabilities it needs, now when run on an older kernel it is suid root and anyone can run it not just root)
2. using one of the many other methods mentioned things would break, potentially in ways that prevent you from even being ablt to shutdown the system (think of shutdown and reboot with capablities set, you could not run them)
option 1 requires care in the trasition to avaoid security holes, option 2 requires a "flag day" type of change. This was hard enough to do to go to ELF binaries when everyone agreed they were significantly better (and even then there was a transition period) I don't see capabilities being such a huge advantage that everyone is willing to sacrafice backwards compatability to get them. Yes the people most interested in security will, but that is not everyone and unless you are willing to wait years to get everyone to agree we need to find a way that avoids breaking everything.
David Lang
"If users are made to understand that the system administrator's job is to make computers run, and not to make them happy, they can, in fact, be made happy most of the time. If users are allowed to believe that the system administrator's job is to make them happy, they can, in fact, never be made happy." - -Paul Evans (as quoted by Barb Dijker in "Managing Support Staff", LISA '97)
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