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enforcing DB immutability

From
IMIngo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Date
Apr 20, 2005, 07:40 UTC
Message-ID
<20050420074053.GA22436@elte.hu>
In-Reply-To
<Pine.LNX.4.58.0504131404380.4501@ppc970.osdl.org>
* Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote:
Show 7 quoted lines
> On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > 
> > 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.)
> 
> So now you need root to set up new repositories? No thanks.

yeah, it's a bit awkward to protect uncompressed repositories - but it will need some sort of kernel enforcement. (if userspace finds out the DB contains uncompressed blobs, it _will_ try to use them.)

(perhaps having an in-kernel GIT-alike versioned filesystem will help - but that brings up the same 'I have to be root' issues. The FS will enforce the true immutability of objects.)

perhaps having a new 'immutable hardlink' feature in the Linux VFS would help? I.e. a hardlink that can only be readonly followed, and can be removed, but cannot be chmod-ed to a writeable hardlink. That i think would be a large enough barrier for editors/build-tools not to play the tricks they already do that makes 'readonly' files virtually meaningless.

	Ingo
Previous: Linus TorvaldsNext: Ingo Molnar
Message 8 of 20 in “Re: Index/hash order”
  1. Ingo MolnarApr 13, 2005
  2. H. Peter AnvinApr 13, 2005
  3. Ingo MolnarApr 13, 2005
  4. Ingo MolnarApr 13, 2005
  5. Ingo MolnarApr 13, 2005
  6. Updated base64 patchesH. Peter Anvin, Apr 13, 2005
  7. Linus TorvaldsApr 13, 2005
  8. enforcing DB immutabilityIngo Molnar, Apr 20, 2005
  9. Ingo MolnarApr 20, 2005
  10. Ingo MolnarApr 20, 2005
  11. Chris WedgwoodApr 20, 2005
  12. Nick Craig-WoodApr 20, 2005
  13. WoutApr 27, 2005
  14. Linus TorvaldsApr 13, 2005
  15. Baruch EvenApr 13, 2005
  16. Florian WeimerApr 13, 2005
  17. Linus TorvaldsApr 13, 2005
  18. Florian WeimerApr 13, 2005
  19. Ingo MolnarApr 14, 2005
  20. cache-cold repository performanceIngo Molnar, Apr 14, 2005

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