[PATCH 1/6] statx: Add a system call to make enhanced file info available

[David Howells]

Andreas Dilger <adilger at dilger.ca> wrote:

> > 	STATX_INFO_ENCRYPTED		File is encrypted
> 
> This flag overlaps with FS_ENCRYPT_FL that is encoded in the FS_IOC_GETFLAGS
> attributes.  Are the FS_* flags expected to be translated into STATX_INFO_*
> flags by each filesystem, or will they be partly duplicated in a separate
> "st_attrs" field added in the future?

I think that most of the FS_IOC_GETFLAGS flags are sufficiently specialised
that they aren't something the ordinary user would necessarily find to be of
interest, so I'm not sure that mapping all of them to STATX_INFO_* flags is
necessary.

That said, I think STATX_INFO_ENCRYPTED *is* usefully deployed here to tell
the user that the file or directory is encrypted and that the user will have
to unlock or provide a key to access it.

I'm also thinking that a STATX_INFO_NEED_AUTHENTICATION flag may be needed to
indicate that the user must authenticate in some way (probably only applicable
to network files) to be able to access the file.

David