From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262744AbUKXOQP (ORCPT ); Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:16:15 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262651AbUKXOOG (ORCPT ); Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:14:06 -0500 Received: from zeus.kernel.org ([204.152.189.113]:57819 "EHLO zeus.kernel.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262727AbUKXOFa (ORCPT ); Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:05:30 -0500 Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:05:15 +0100 (MET) From: Jan Engelhardt To: Peter Foldiak cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, reiserfs-list@namesys.com Subject: Re: file as a directory In-Reply-To: <1101287762.1267.41.camel@pear.st-and.ac.uk> Message-ID: References: <2c59f00304112205546349e88e@mail.gmail.com> <41A1FFFC.70507@hist.no> <41A21EAA.2090603@dbservice.com> <41A23496.505@namesys.com> <1101287762.1267.41.camel@pear.st-and.ac.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org >I think something like > >/etc/passwd/[username] > >would be a really nice extension. The idea is more general, it would >unify the namespace for file selection and part-of-file selection. Yeah, and where will you do that? (Possible answers are: kernel space, user space). I honestly vote against *these* kinds of plugins (i.e. reading .tar files, /etc, and such). For one, it is to be done in kernel space, which means the module code can not be swapped out. Debugging is more complex, segfaults will kill the machine -- thus it's more open to blackhat hackers. Also simply because it (the module code) would be a reinvention of wheel, it's all been written before. Jan Engelhardt -- Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung Am Fassberg, 37077 Göttingen, www.gwdg.de