Re: [gamin] socket credentials patch for NetBSD

["Johnny C. Lam" <jlam NetBSD org>]

Daniel Veillard wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 12:54:18PM -0400, Johnny C. Lam wrote:
>
> > Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looked like the extent of the 
> > authentication that gamin does is that the server and the client 
> > mutually check that the process at the other end of the socket shares 
> > the same UID as itself.  Since we can easily get this information on all 
> > of Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and BSD/OS, it's easy to make gamin 
> > work on all of those platforms with the same "strength of authentication".
>
>
>  The problem is to get it in a trusted way. Your initial patch was basically
> believing informations sent from the client, and to me you can't trust those.

No, the initial patch and the next one got the actual credentials that 
gamin uses (UID) in the same way.  Actually, it's gotten in the same way 
across all the platforms -- from the kernel.  The only difference is 
that the initial patch pulled the PID info from the socket, but that's 
not really credential information -- it's actually debugging information.

>   We disagree on the importance of the debugging information.

We're not disagreeing.  In fact, I agree with you!  I was just asking 
whether my understanding of how the PID information was used by gamin 
was correct, which you confirmed.

>   again non-conditionalized platform changes, you change data for all OSes
> You may submit later a second patch explaining why this would need to be
> changed, but I don't want to see this as part of a "make gamin work on NetBSD"
> patch.

Okay, that's fine.  This is your project, and I'll comply with your 
rules.  I do have access to all three platforms under discussion 
(NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Linux), and I did test on all three before 
submitting my patches.  However, to honor your wishes, I'll submit two 
separate patches: one with "#ifdef NetBSD" that adds only support for 
NetBSD, and another that consolidates the code for all three platforms 
so that differences are minimal.

	Cheers,

	-- Johnny Lam <jlam NetBSD org>