Re: [PATCH] x86: defconfig: Enable CONFIG_FHANDLE

From: Dave Chinner
Date: Sun Nov 30 2014 - 15:54:53 EST


On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 12:36:52AM +0100, Richard Weinberger wrote:
> systemd has a hard dependency on CONFIG_FHANDLE.
> If you run systemd with CONFIG_FHANDLE=n it will somehow
> boot but fail to spawn a getty or other basic services.
> As systemd is now used by most x86 distributions it
> makes sense to enabled this by default and save kernel
> hackers a lot of value debugging time.

The bigger question to me is this: why does systemd need to
store/open by handle rather than just opening paths directly when
needed? This interface is intended for stable, pathless access to
inodes across unmount/mount contexts (e.g. userspace NFS servers,
filesystem backup programs, etc) so I'm curious as to the problem
systemd is solving using this interface. I just can't see the
problem being solved here, and why path based security checks on
every open() aren't necessary...

Cheers,

Dave.
--
Dave Chinner
david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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