Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 2 Mar 2003 08:18:41 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 2 Mar 2003 08:18:41 -0500 Received: from [66.70.28.20] ([66.70.28.20]:46353 "EHLO maggie.piensasolutions.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sun, 2 Mar 2003 08:18:40 -0500 Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 14:04:30 +0100 From: DervishD To: jw schultz , Linux-kernel Subject: Re: About /etc/mtab and /proc/mounts Message-ID: <20030302130430.GI45@DervishD> References: <20030219112111.GD130@DervishD> <3E5C8682.F5929A04@daimi.au.dk> <3E5DB2CA.32539D41@daimi.au.dk> <3E5DCB89.9086582F@daimi.au.dk> <20030227092121.GG15254@pegasys.ws> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <20030227092121.GG15254@pegasys.ws> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Organization: Pleyades User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1433 Lines: 32 Hi J.W. :) jw schultz dixit: > The idea of storing the list of mounted filesystems on a > mounted filesystem is a bad idea from the get-go. I'm with you on this, with an exception. It's a bad idea provided you have some way to know what filesystems are mounted, together with the options, etc... /bin/mount knows all those options, obviously, and the kernel not always (AFAIK). Don't know why. > Let the data reside in the kernel and have a procfs or sysfs > entity for it. A symlink from /etc/mtab can keep the old > tools happy. That's what I propose, too. Even if this lead to technical difficulties, /etc/mtab is, IMHO, obsolete and a better solution tried instead. Obviously I don't have such a solution, but I think that a procfs based solution and a symlink for mtab will work quite good. I know: some systems don't have procfs, but I think that those systems will have a read-only /etc anyway... Other solution is to link /etc/mtab to a point at /var. If 'mount' treats specially the mtab if it is a symlink... well, IMHO this is not correct. Yes, this can lead to an attack, but: 'mount' is a setuid program, and only root can symlink /etc/mtab, true? Ra?l - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/