Re: [9fans] fs administration: how do people update multi-user fs?

[Jack Johnson <fragment@nas.com>]

Ronald G. Minnich wrote:
> A few things I've noticed in recent years, esp. on Linux
> - you need to be root more than you used to
> - more priveleged ports, not less

I know this is off-topic for this list, but would you be willing to
elaborate a bit?

I agree with you in the other areas, but it seems that we're trading
services, not necessarily adding services.  SSH for telnet and ftp, so
yes, maybe setuid-root, but we add a privileged port and drop two.  We
might add Samba or netatalk to a system that already has NFS shares, but
the reasons they're privileged ports seem to be outside the hands of the
Linux community, and most of the added privileged ports seem to be
running as unique users now, instead of all running as root.

It also seems like increased usage of chrooted/jailed services has made
things slightly better, even though it's still privileged, and yes,
still a mess.

Are there better ways?  Sure, but you're not likely to see them widely
implemented anytime soon.  As long as Linux continues to accrete
functionality to accomodate Someone Else's OS the prevalent services
will always be less than desired, but I don't see it as any worse than
it was five years ago, just more of the same.

I'm always suprised that there isn't more prevalent bootstrapping going
on in the client world for halfway decent services.  I wouldn't mind
seeing an SFS client for Windows, or heck, even Java.  Though I think
OSX will let you have WebDAV home directories now, there should be some
facility for arbitrary-service-home-directory for PAM.

(Is the 9P on Python project still in existence?)

-Jack