From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S270525AbTGUQlX (ORCPT ); Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:41:23 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S270526AbTGUQkf (ORCPT ); Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:40:35 -0400 Received: from smtp.terra.es ([213.4.129.129]:54421 "EHLO tfsmtp2.mail.isp") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S270525AbTGUQk0 (ORCPT ); Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:40:26 -0400 From: RAMON_GARCIA_F To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <5f3d05a5f5.5a5f55f3d0@teleline.es> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 18:55:24 +0200 X-Mailer: Netscape Webmail MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Language: es Subject: Re: Suggestion for a new system call: convert file handle to a cookie for transfering file handles between processes. X-Accept-Language: es Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org My proposal is useful for cases where the server program is running with a different priviledge from the user invoking it. Examples where this behaviour is useful are writting CDs, saving man pages, saving TeX cache files, where full access to a resource would be unsafe, but limited access through an intermediate server is safe. In addition, this proposal is useful for cases where the server process cannot access the named file, becaue it does not have permission to do so, or because it is anonymous (example: a pipe). I can't see why cookies introduce circular references. A cookie referes to an inode, but an inode does not refer to a file. However, a cookie introduces a permanent reference to a file handle. This reference is not destroyed until the cookie is used. Therefore, cookies should have a timeout associated with them, so that if they are not consumed they should be destroyed. Ramon