force mode (Was: RE: more thoughts on Samba permissions manipulat ion)

[Cole, Timothy D.]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	David Collier-Brown [SMTP:davecb at canada.sun.com]
> Sent:	Friday, June 18, 1999 12:49
> To:	timothy_d_cole at md.northgrum.com
> Cc:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	Re: more thoughts on Samba permissions manipulation
> 
> Cole, Timothy D. wrote:
> > Only thing is, now I'm having a hard time coming up with a rationale for
> > even having a 'security mask'-like parameter.  It's probably related to
> the
> > rationale behind the 'force mode' parameter, which I can't justify to
> myself
> > right now either.  Obviously someone wanted or needed it, though; I'm
> kind
> > of curious who uses 'force mode', and for what...
> 
> 	We use it to force group write on files which are maniplated
> 	by a PC program:  they're initially group-writable, until
> 	someone edits them with the PC program, which renames them
> 	to <name>.BAK, and creates a new file <name>.<ext> with the
> 	default permissions and ownerships and the changed data.
> 
> 	This destroys the previous ownership and permissions, so
> 	no-one else can edit the files! Therefor we force group write 
> 	on all files created in that share.
> 
	Ah, that makes sense.  Thank you.

> 	By the way, the Eunuch programs which manipulate the files
> 	make a copy named <file>.BAK, and then read from it and
> 	write to <file>.<ext> when changing their contents. This
> 	doesn't blow the ownerships and permissions away.
> 
	*sigh*  indeed...  why can't PC software vendors get these kind of
things right?  I know they've been dealing with DOS for the past ten years,
but even so...

	Hrm.  The intended use of force mode, then, is also file creation.
Getting back to the 'security mask' and 'security force mode' things, can
anyone come up with any scenarios where limiting the permissions that can be
explicitly set via the SMB interface is useful, without giving the admin a
false sense of security?