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List:       linux-coda
Subject:    Re: device files
From:       Ivan Popov <pin () medic ! chalmers ! se>
Date:       2004-09-19 15:57:19
Message-ID: 20040919155719.GE13968 () fettuccine ! tekno ! chalmers ! se
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On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 12:02:27PM +0200, Jan Kopriva wrote:
> Is there any way how to share device files?

Hello Jan,

you are probably thinking in a wrong direction.

Device files are something that is very Unix-specific, differs in semantics
on different dialects, has a lot to do with hardware, and is being
tried to be replaced by different approaches like devfs.

Most important, they control access to host-local resources and as such
can not be reasonably protected on a global file system.

The same about setuid programs and other stuff that concerns by definition
access to some _local_ resources, not access to global data. Forget it.

NFS did a great job of confusing local and global concepts together,
but let's try to be sane :)

Device files is not something worth for a distributed filesystem
to support. They are inherently unsafe on a global one.
Finally, they are not at all necessary there for client administration.

If you really really need them, just create a ram fs and put your
device files there. Share the creation script instead of the files :)

Best regards,
--
Ivan

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