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To:     linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
From:   "Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult" <metux@gmx.de>
Subject: adding plan9-like usernames to the kernel
Cc:     aganti@google.com
Message-ID: <0597ffe1-f80e-d5dd-e20d-da68bd8a189a@gmx.de>
Date:   Wed, 7 Feb 2018 13:38:49 +0100
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Hi folks,


as part as a little research project for bringing Plan9 semantics
to Linux, I'd like to add textual usernames. In contrast to *nix,
Plan9 doesn't use numerical IDs, but names.

Obviously that needs some internal mapping between names and ids.

Should this go into struct user_namespace (where per-namespace
uid mapping lives) or to struct cred / struct user_struct ?

The primary consumer of this username will be the /dev/caphash
and /dev/capuse devices for switching the UID.
(an interesting question of course is, how to allocate the
numerical UIDs for given usernames)


--mtx

-- 
Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult
Free software and Linux embedded engineering
info@metux.net -- +49-151-27565287