Re: Proposal: a consistent mount interface

Matthias Urlichs (smurf@noris.de)
27 Nov 1996 23:27:19 +0100


In linux.dev.kernel, article <199611261151.GAA23127@mercy.mit.edu>,
Maciej Stachowiak <mstachow@mit.edu> writes:
>
[ 2. Have a different mount program for each remote file system ]

> However, the second solution does have some advantages. Here they are,
> along with my objections to them. First, it allows arbitrary
> interesting things to be done in user space at mount time. However,

There are cases where this won't work. For instance, let's say my superFS
mount call requires some public-key authorization, using my personal
authentication daemon on my secure machine (look at ssh).

I do NOT think it's be a good idea to pass what's essentially an open file
descriptor (ssh can do it that way) through a mount program and kerneld to
a mountd thing which doesn't have access to the user's environment and thus
may not be able to determine whether the user is authorized to access that
particular file system.

> using kerneld, this can be achieved anyway. Second, if each fs type

Since mount is the only program which does this, kerneld is unnecessary.

-- 
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