From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Tue, 26 Jun 2001 22:12:04 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Tue, 26 Jun 2001 22:11:54 -0400 Received: from gateway2.ensim.com ([65.164.64.250]:12306 "EHLO nasdaq.ms.ensim.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Tue, 26 Jun 2001 22:11:37 -0400 X-Mailer: exmh version 2.3 01/15/2001 with nmh-1.0 From: Paul Menage To: Alexander Viro cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] User chroot cc: pmenage@ensim.com In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 26 Jun 2001 21:40:36 EDT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 19:17:57 -0700 Message-Id: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > >You need to be root to do mknod. You need to do mknod to create /dev/zero. >You need /dev/zero to get anywhere near the normal behaviour of the system. > Sure, but we're not necessarily looking for a system that behaves normally in all aspects. The example given was that of a paranoid network server that does all its initialisation in a normal environment, and then does a chroot to its data directory. Or alternatively, forks after accepting a connection, and the child does a chroot. No need to be able to exec other programs, etc. Such a daemon is certainly possible, as I've written one myself. But it had to be started by root, rather than by a normal user. I'm not claiming that the user chroot patch is necessarily useful enough to be included in the standard kernel - merely that it does have some real-world uses. Paul