Re: devfs: default permissions - SOLUTION

Theodore Y. Ts'o (tytso@MIT.EDU)
Fri, 9 Jan 1998 12:28:29 -0500


Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 14:22:43 +1100
From: Kevin Lentin <kevinl@cs.monash.edu.au>

The main complaint we see is that the kernel may choose defaults that a
sysadmin may not like. So I ask, how often does this happen? And the answer
seems to be: once per installation. So I propose the following:

- During kernel compile, a script converts this into a suitable devperms.h
file (just like the kernel compile turns .config into autoconf.h). That
process would involve converting username and groupnames into numbers and
creating a set of #defines.

You're assuming end-users compile their own kernels. That's true for
developers, but for people who simply use a turn-key distribution such
as RedHat, we can't assume that they will be building their own custom
kernel. The whole point of modules and initrd is to allow distributions
to install a generic set of kernel and modules which don't require a
kernel recompile as part of the installation process....

- Ted