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.
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.