lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2007]   [Jun]   [18]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
From
SubjectRe: Versioning file system
Date
On Jun 18, 2007, at 17:24:23, Brad Boyer wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 12:26:57AM +0200, Jörn Engel wrote:
>> Pointless here means that _I_ don't see the point. Maybe there
>> are valid uses for extended attributes. If there are, noone has
>> explained them to me yet.
>
> The users of extended attributes that I've dealt with are ACL
> support and SELinux. These both use extended attributes under the
> covers. It's just not immediately obvious if you aren't looking.

Yeah, extended attributes are typically used for exactly that:
"attributes" like labels, permissions, encoding, cached file-type,
DOS/Windows/Mac metadata, etc. Sometimes people suggest sticking
icons in there, but that's probably a bad idea. At most stick an
"icon label" attribute which refers to a file "/usr/share/icons/
by_attr/$ICON_LABEL.png". If you're trying to put more than 256
bytes of data in an extended attribute then you're probably doing
something wrong. They're very good for cached attributes (like file-
type) where you don't care if the data is lost by "tar", and they're
reasonable for security-related attributes where you don't want
attribute-unaware programs trying to save and restore them (like
SELinux labels).

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2007-06-19 05:19    [W:0.061 / U:0.628 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site