Re:Got an old Raspberry Pi spare? Try RISC OS. It is, someth...
by ptman on Friday May 03, 2024 @03:31AM
(#40245152)
You could do with some other concept than users. E.g. namespaces or capabilities.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Got an old Raspberry Pi spare? Try RISC OS. It is, someth...
by pjmlp on Friday May 03, 2024 @05:18AM
(#40245702)
It is another way to call a "user", hence why I used the word indentity instead.
Re:Got an old Raspberry Pi spare? Try RISC OS. It is, someth...
by josephg on Friday May 03, 2024 @05:35AM
(#40245794)
No its not. There's all sorts of stuff you can do with capabilities that are really awkward to even think about with users. Like, when a database starts, you can hand it the capabilities it needs to access a specific directory, listen on a specific port and append (but not read) a specific log file.
User based security is usually done by the folder being owned by the database, or an ACL or something. But with capabilities, you don't need to make a database user or set any flags on the folder, or make sure the database's configuration matches the filesystem permissions. The capability is basically a pre baked file handle that can be used directly. And capabilities can do lots more stuff! They can be more fine grained - eg, "Whatsapp can only access these specific photos in my camera roll". And a program can pass a subset of its capabilities to a child process.
Re:Got an old Raspberry Pi spare? Try RISC OS. It is, someth...
by pjmlp on Friday May 03, 2024 @08:06AM
(#40246740)
Capabilites have ownership, ownership requires belonging to something, all the way up to booting the OS.
Re:Got an old Raspberry Pi spare? Try RISC OS. It is, someth...
by josephg on Friday May 03, 2024 @08:56AM
(#40247172)
Capabilities can just be variables. Variables all belong to something, all the way up to the OS. Would you say variables are a type of user permission? Obviously not. Variables are more versatile than that. So are capabilities.