Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl From: karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: File daemons Message-ID:Date: 28 Sep 89 14:07:49 GMT References: <14609@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Distribution: na Organization: OSU Lines: 16 In-reply-to: flee@shire.cs.psu.edu's message of 28 Sep 89 03:55:41 GMT flee@shire.cs.psu.edu writes: > The obvious fully-general solution is to allow arbitrary functions > to be attached to files, to perform any kind of authentication > checking or audit trails that the file's owner might desire. Scott Schwartz has been randomly working on a daemon that implements access control lists. The idea is, if you want to open a file you don't normally have access to, you ask the daemon to open it for you, and it will give you an open file descriptor This has already been done. See, for example, "Watchdogs: Extending the UNIX File System," by Brian N Bershad & C Brian Pinkerton, Winter 88 (Dallas) Usenix Proceedings (and a later version of the same paper in Vol 1 No 2 of _Computing_Systems_). --Karl