From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265148AbUHHFZ3 (ORCPT ); Sun, 8 Aug 2004 01:25:29 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265152AbUHHFZ3 (ORCPT ); Sun, 8 Aug 2004 01:25:29 -0400 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:6876 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265148AbUHHFZ1 (ORCPT ); Sun, 8 Aug 2004 01:25:27 -0400 Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 22:25:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: James Morris cc: David Howells , akpm@osdl.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, arjanv@redhat.com, dwmw2@infradead.org, greg@kroah.com, Chris Wright , sfrench@samba.org, mike@halcrow.us, Trond Myklebust , Kyle Moffett Subject: Re: [PATCH] implement in-kernel keys & keyring management In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sun, 8 Aug 2004, James Morris wrote: > > I would suggest that the /sbin/request-key interface be done via Netlink > messaging instead. The kernel would generate key create and key update > messages, to which userpace daemons can respond (similar to e.g. pfkey > acquire). I think these messages need to be tagged with the key 'type', > so that the userspace code knows what to generate keys for. I really disagree. If you want to use netlink, do so. But do it from the /sbin/request-key script or binary. I've never seen a good binary deamon listening for things. It's a horrible interface. It's undebuggable, it's inflexible, and it's just plain nasty. I'm just looking at how _well_ /sbin/hotplug has worked out. I believe that it would have been a disaster done with a binary messaging setup. Linus