Subject: Re: Addition to force open to open only regular files
To: Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@zembu.com>
From: Jason R Thorpe <thorpej@zembu.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 11/28/2000 17:07:40
On Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 04:25:36PM -0800, Bill Studenmund wrote:

 > Ahhh.... That makes a lot of sense. Yes, the calls were more for amd-ish
 > things (NAStore or arla, and AFS can use it too), NOT for usenet things.

...although, it certainly could be used for USENET'ish things.  That's
the beauty of it -- it's generic!

 > The thought of a news server running as root is scarry. No wonder folks
 > wanted that stopped! More pwoer to them! :-)

There are N ways to fix the "news server running as root" issue:

	- Mount option to allow non-root to use file handles.
	- POSIX "capabilities"-style "this process can use
	  file handles" bit.

Those are two off the top of my head without even thinking about it
too hard.  The mount option is certainly trivial to implement.

-- 
        -- Jason R. Thorpe <thorpej@zembu.com>