devfs initial permissions

Colin Plumb (colin@nyx.net)
Sat, 10 Jan 1998 02:51:46 -0700 (MST)


People are devising all kinds of schemes for sensible devfs initial
defalut values. In particular, one person had a table of uids and gids
compiled into the kernel. I think this is a Bad Thing.

The kernel knows that
- Uids are different
- One uid (0) is more equal than the others.

Using gid 0 is not a horrible idea, but I think that using any uid or gid
*except* 0 is a Bad Thing. Modprobe can set the permissions if different
ones are wanted.

I'd prefer having a default mode of 000, to make it clear that you really
have to make a decision about the permissions, and the kernel isn't going
to do it for you. Failing that, 0600 (which might be needed so that
init can open /dev/console). Failing that, a device can specify initial
permissions if it knows, that e.g. /dev/null is harmless.

But I'd rather force the issue into user-space where it has to be dealt
with anyway.

-- 
	-Colin