Subject: Re: bin/4637 Re: tftpd oddity, PR 4637, code fix enclosed
To: Alexis Rosen <alexis@panix.com>
From: Aidan Cully <aidan@kublai.com>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 02/04/1999 00:39:42
On Wed, Feb 03, 1999 at 03:18:41AM -0500, Alexis Rosen wrote:
> I've thought about this some more, and while I'm happy to see either of the
> proposed changes committed, since neither is as broken as the current tftpd,
> I still think my proposed patch is more "correct".
> 
> As I see it, the list of directories given to the tftpd command line serves
> two purposes. First, it prevents changes outside of those dirs. But equally,
> it serves as a list of shortcuts, somewhat like CDPATH does in the shell.
> And just as CDPATH doesn't apply to all operations, so this list shouldn't
> either.

I don't really follow what you're saying with CDPATH..  Are you saying,
"it's like the server cd's into each directory passed on the command line
to find a program, but only for the purposes of reading files," or, "it's
like how CDPATH only applies to 'cd', the directories passed on the
command line should only apply to reading files"?

I view it more like a list of PWDs, or, perhaps more appropriately, a sort
of 'union mount' between all the directories when requesting a relative
file.

> Anyway, having said that, I don't care all that much, and it would be cool
> if someone other than Aidan and myself would indicate which of the two
> patches is preferrable (or, I suppose, a patch for the original proposed
> solution). Otherwise, I suspect Aidan and I will flip a coin to decide
> what to put in. :-)

Of course, as the person with CVS access I get veto power.. :-)

--aidan