From: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 20:15:23 GMT
Subject: Re: Index/hash order
Message-ID: <20050413201523.GC27088@elte.hu>
In-Reply-To: <425D7C0F.2050109@zytor.com>


* H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:

> >that's what i loosely meant under 'manageability problems'.
> >
> >I mentioned one solution earlier: to make the repository object an 
> >immutable file (the +i flag on the inode) - it really wants to be 
> >immutable after all. That would solve a whole range of 'accidental 
> >corruption' issues.
> >
> 
> I think abusing the immutable bit quickly will decend into the same 
> rathole which makes u-w often useless.  u-w will actually be preserved 
> by more tools -- simply because they know about it -- than +i.

well, the 'owned by another user' solution is valid though, and doesnt 
have this particular problem. (We've got a secure multiuser OS, so can 
as well use it to protect the DB against corruption.)

> Either which way, it feels to me that this idea has already been ruled 
> out, so it's probably pointless to keep debating just exactly what 
> we're not actually going to do.

(even if it sounds stupid, i keep discussing decisions that are done for 
reasons i cannot fully agree with (yet), even if i happen to agree with 
the net decision. It's all technological arguments, so it's not like 
there's anything fuzzy about any of these issues.)

	Ingo