On Fri, 11 Dec 1998 22:26:55 +0100, Alexander Kjeldaas
<astor@guardian.no> said:
> Two questions about this API springs to mind:
> o Would it be possible to use a file-descriptor instead of a path?
> This isn't a problem for raw-device use, but for a generic
> interface, using a file-descriptor is safe while using a file-name
> has races. You can emulate the API you describe using an
> file-descriptor-based API, but you can't do the opposite.
We already have an ext2-specific ioctl which you can use on an open
file, but yes, such an extension would be possible. I'm not entirely
sure how useful it would be given that chattr() is likely to be the
only program using it!
> o Would it be possible to generalize this to include setting
> attributes like capabilities and ACLs? This requires passing a
> variable-sized structure.
No, Linux already rejected such an interface, requesting clearly
defined APIs for separate functionality like ACLs.
--Stephen
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