Re: [RFC][PATCH] O(1) Entitlement Based Scheduler

From: Peter Williams
Date: Sat Feb 28 2004 - 18:57:25 EST


Bill Davidsen wrote:
On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, Rik van Riel wrote:


On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, Bill Davidsen wrote:


I disagree.

It would be nice to have the scheduler identify processes which
interface to user information devices, but it must be done in a way
which doesn't open gaping security or misuse holes.

You seem to disagree only with what you think you read,
not with what the code does. Please read the actual
code, since it seems to do what you propose.


I disagree with the paragraph preceding my comment, which you removed to
take what I said out of context. And I still disagree. I "think I read" that just fine, although it may not correctly summarize the implementation
of the code.

In any case, as long as the code provides the protection against letting
users change priorities to hog resources I don't disagree with that.
Experience has shown that people WILL abuse any mechanism which gives them
an unfair share of a shared system. For home systems that's less
important, obviously.


The O(1) Entitlement Based Scheduler places the equivalent restrictions on setting task attributes (i.e. shares and caps) as are placed on using nice and renice. I.e. ordinary users can only change settings on their own processes and only if the change is more restricting than the current setting. In particular, they cannot increase a task's shares only decrease them, they can impose or reduce a cap but not release or increase it and they can change a soft cap to a hard cap but cannot change a hard cap to a soft cap.

Additionally, only root can change the scheduler's tuning parameters.

I hope this alleviates your concerns,
Peter
--
Dr Peter Williams, Chief Scientist peterw@xxxxxxxxxx
Aurema Pty Limited Tel:+61 2 9698 2322
PO Box 305, Strawberry Hills NSW 2012, Australia Fax:+61 2 9699 9174
79 Myrtle Street, Chippendale NSW 2008, Australia http://www.aurema.com

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