Hey, thanks for taking the time to answer so thoroughly. From: Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM> > [snip] > > So, if you think these protocols can be implemented in D-BUS and still > ensure the same degree of security, then I think someone should write > up a proposal of how things should be rewritten and send it to this > list for community review. > > One potential problem, though, of having GDM depend on HAL/D-BUS is that > these add new dependencies. Are HAL and D-BUS appropriate to be used > in root-owned daemons with the security requirements of GDM? Have HAL > and D-BUS been audited to ensure that using them in programs like GDM > is appropriate? > > Even if we can't use HAL/D-BUS for the above reasons, I'm sure the code > could be rewritten and improved natively. After all, the messaging > needs of GDM aren't really all that great. Well, I'm not in a position to judge this, but NetworkManager, for instance, relies heavily on both HAL and D-BUS and is an example of a daemon running as root. Yet AFAIK NM is Linux specific while GDM seems to be used on a lot of different systems. > > Which is already too many comunication channels for the same set of apps and > > still, to halt and reboot we are using _exit() and waitpid()! > > Yes, this is ugly and I'm sure the code could be rewritten and > improved. It would be great if you would like to take a stab at this. > > > I understand that gdm manages a complex task and that probably many people > > already touched the code (probably implementing their own ways to communicate) > > but this makes it very difficult to change anything in a sane way. I'm afraid > > that gdm is badly needing a major redesign, probably using newer technologies > > like dbus and hal and with a single, powerfull interface between all the > > pieces. I would like to help even if I don't know much about all these APIs > > yet. Are there already any plans to engage in such a task? > > I agree with you that a redesign of GDM's message handling system is > overdue, but there aren't plans at the moment to improve it. If you > are interested in doing this sort of work, I'd be happy to help you > understand the code and help. I'd love to get into this, but I've never been on a "serious" project. On the other hand one has got to start somewhere. I'll research these things and come back to you when I need it. Right now, I've got a lot of university work to do. But in the summer I hope to look into this more seriously. I've got some ideas of how GDM could work better and be a lot more integrated with gnome but that will have to wait for now. Thanks for your time, Rui
Attachment:
pgpaDN7QPXyPg.pgp
Description: PGP signature