"Inherit Permissions" request for comments

[David Collier-Brown]

Erick Woods wrote:
[...] security risk, having an alternate owner from that of the owner 
| of a home directory is a very bad idea  i.e. having a publicly
accessible
| folder in /home/bill. 
> No one should have access to ANYTHING under another users home directory.
> Period.  That is a poor implementation of security in any model.

	I both agree and disagree...

	Unix and NT provide "discretionary access controls" (DAC), which
	allow a user or sysadmin acting on his behalf to control
	access to files under that user's control.  This is what
	the military calls "need to know" control: if I decide you
	need to read X, I give you read permission on X.

	The other model is "mandatory access control" (MAC), where
	a user can't change it, and the sysadmin/security-officer
	won't change it on my mere say-so.  This is the kind
	of statutory separation that keeps me from having any
	access to the payroll system or to other employees'
	medical records.  

	NT doesn't do any MAC.

	Samba does just a tiny bit: it can prohibit users,
	machines or members of domains/subnets. As this is at
	the network level, I argue that it's appropriate
	[long rant re this available on request].

	I don't want to try to add it to Unix via Samba, as
	neither Unix or NT has it, and it's a lot of work
	for not much value. [Another long rant on what it 
	**is** good for available on request]

--dave


-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | Always do right. This will gratify some people
185 Ellerslie Ave.,   | and astonish the rest.        -- Mark Twain
Willowdale, Ontario   | //www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/author.html
Work: (905) 415-2849 Home: (416) 223-8968 Email: davecb at canada.sun.com