Re: [PATCH 1/4] eCryptfs: Netlink functions for public key

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:18:37 -0500
Michael Halcrow <mhalcrow@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> > - _why_ does it use netlink?
> 
> Netlink provides the transport mechanism that would minimize the
> complexity of the implementation, given that we can have multiple
> daemons (one per user). I explored the possibility of using relayfs,
> but that would involve having to introduce control channels and a
> protocol for creating and tearing down channels for the daemons. We do
> not have to worry about any of that with netlink.

I'd have thought that a more appropriate communication mechanism would be
something which uses a file descriptor: a pipe, or a /dev node or whatever.

That way, the endpoints are more tightly defined and the
daemon-didnt-send-quit problem gets solved.  In fact, the quit message
might become unneeded: just use close()?