Re: POSIX ACL API in glibc?

["Mark Brown" <bmark at us dot ibm dot com>]

Andreas G. writes:
> I have been thinking about alternatives for some time, and came to the 
> conclusion that the ACL sections in the POSIX 1003.1e draft 17 document 
are a 
> useful compromise between retaining compatibility with legacy POSIX 
> applications, and enabling ACLs. The draft specification has some 
obvious 
> flaws, and needs a few small extensions to be fully usable. Nevertheless 

> nothing else comes close enough in achieving the goals (of the 1003.1e 
> working group, which are defined in Appendix B of 1003.1e).
> 
> There have been attempts to drive the standardization process further 
from 
> draft 17, but nothing has happened since years, and it's quite unlikely 
that 
> this will change anytime soon.

The PAR (charter) for this standard was withdrawn in 1998. No real work 
has been
done on it since. The IEEE PASC status chart is unclear whether d17 is 
official or
not, BTW.

I've thought some more about my negative reaction, and it is due to having 
been
burned by implementing "draft specifications" that changed later. The 
situation
with this specification show no signs of changing, so implementing it 
should not
be as "dangerous".

BUT: Since ACLs are not implemented on every kernel the same way (there 
being
no standard), I'm not sure that libc proper is the right place.  A 
separate
library seems more appropriate.


-------------------
Mark S. Brown 
Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM Server Group
bmark@us.ibm.com
512.838.3926