Re: [PATCH] driver core: add uid and gid to devtmpfs

[Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 01:14:13PM -0500, Rob Landley wrote:
> On 04/06/2013 11:56:00 AM, Greg KH wrote:
> >From: Kay Sievers <kay@vrfy.org>
> >
> >Some drivers want to tell userspace what uid and gid should be
> >used for
> >their device nodes, so allow that information to percolate through the
> >driver core to userspace in order to make this happen.  This means
> >that
> >some systems (i.e.  Android and friends) will not need to even run a
> >udev-like daemon for their device node manager and can just rely in
> >devtmpfs fully, reducing their footprint even more.
> 
> Wasn't the entire "devfsd" saga because this was policy and didn't
> belong in kernel space?

devfs did a number of things "wrong", not the least being it set a
naming policy that was non-standard, and it had unfixable race conditons
in it.

> I guess it's not policy if Android wants it?
> It's just The One True Way?

Don't be facetious please.

> Or is this because containers allow UID/GID to be redefined, and
> thus imposing magic values on userspace can now be mapped away or
> something?

I don't understand, what do you mean by this?

greg k-h