Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@...>, Dave Quigley <dpquigl@...>, Stephen Smalley <sds@...>, <viro@...>, <bfields@...>, <linux-kernel@...>, <linux-fsdevel@...>, LSM List <linux-security-module@...>
On Fri, 2008-02-29 at 10:52 -0800, Casey Schaufler wrote:
The problem isn't that of supporting the naive user xattr model: we can
almost do that within the existing 'named attribute' model of NFSv4. The
problem is that of supporting the arbitrary "security metadata" that are
allowed to have side-effects on the system behaviour, and that we appear
to have thought was a good idea to overload onto the xattr interface.
In the case of maclabels, where the "side-effect" is to describe and
enable extra access control rules, then you have the potential for
setting people up with a major interoperability problem. Using a
dedicated interface for it instead of overloading a Linux-style xattr
interface allows you to limit the scope of the documentation problem
that you would otherwise have.
Trond
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