Extended attribute interfaces

[Casey Schaufler]

Andreas Gruenbacher wrote:

> > Make "$attributes" be kernel only, for ACLs and such.
> >
> > Make "+attributes" be system protected, requiring CAP_EXT_ATTR
> > to access.
> >
> > Make "!attributes" be accessable as are mode bits, that is,
> > publicly readable, owner writeable.
> >
> > Make all other attributes accessable as is file data.
> 
> I like that idea very much.
> 
> (Modulus keeping all other non-letter first characters reserved for future
> extensions, or something like that).

Actually, it occurs to me that if we put a prefix on "other"
attributes as well (how about "?attributes") we never have to
worry about new prefixes. We could either require that users
specify the '?' or we have the syscall prepend it to any
attribute name without a recognized prefix. I'm inclined
toward to former, with the libraries doing the job of the
latter.

> You mean user attributes for device special files.

Sigh. No, I mean the Irix equivalent of devfs.

-- 

Casey Schaufler				Manager, Trust Technology, SGI
casey at sgi.com				voice: 650.933.1634
casey_p at pager.sgi.com			Pager: 888.220.0607
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