RFC: Adding a ``user'' mount option

[Joe Marcus Clarke]

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Robert Watson wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Apr 2006, Joe Marcus Clarke wrote:
> 
>> I know we have vfs.usermount, but this is not always sufficient since
>> the user has to own the mount point in question.  What I propose is to
>> add a ``user'' mount option à la Linux.  This would make mount and
>> umount setuid root, but would allow much more flexibility when it
>> comes to removable media and desktop systems.
> 
> I would suggest that an extremely careful security audit of the
> userspace and kernel mount and unmount code is due -- especially things
> like the per-filesystem mount code (mount_nfs, etc).  I'm not against
> the principle of this though.

Agreed.  I was hoping to make this solution secure, flexible, and easy
to use.

> 
> Also, I'm not 100% sure we should make the getuid() check return a hard
> error in user space.  Let's continue to let the kernel code make the
> access control decision here.

I did the check in user space so that I could read the fstab file, and
know that the volume was allowed to be user-[un]mounted.  I suppose,
though, that I could set the flags in user space, then pass that to the
kernel for the actual access control decision as you say.

Joe

> 
> Robert N M Watson
> 
>>
>> I'm not a src committer, so this isn't a threat to commit.  I'm more
>> interested in getting feedback, and hopefully some src committer
>> interest.  I think this would really benefit desktop FreeBSD.
>>
>> http://www.marcuscom.com/downloads/usermount.diff
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> -- 
>> Joe Marcus Clarke
>> FreeBSD GNOME Team      ::      gnome at FreeBSD.org
>> FreeNode / #freebsd-gnome
>> http://www.FreeBSD.org/gnome
>>


- --
Joe Marcus Clarke
FreeBSD GNOME Team	::	gnome at FreeBSD.org
FreeNode / #freebsd-gnome
http://www.FreeBSD.org/gnome
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