Re: [9fans] fossil permission checking

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>]

>>i believe new directories in / are frowned upon
>
> Understood, though 'bootes' or whoever has superuser-like permissions should still have unlimited abilities, right?

the concept in plan 9 is called the "host owner" or eve.  eve
has special abilities on the local machine.  there are 31 places where
eve is granted special excemption to normal permission checking
in /sys/src/9/^(port ip).  the reason for so many checks is that eve
is given very targeted special abilities.  it's very unlike the unix
superuser.  the fileserver, being distinct from the cpu server kernel,
knows nothing of eve.  as far as the fs is concerned, eve is just another
user.  so eve would not be special on /, which is served by the fs.  on
the other hand, /proc is typicall served by the local kernel and eve
does have special permissions here.  eve can change permissions on
most processes.  this allows eve to debug most processes running
on a cpu server.

> Or is this purely a function of the flags to mount the root?

yes.

> On a side-note though, what is the preferred UNIX equivalent of /usr/local or /usr2?

there is none.

>> Also, there's not exactly a command like UNIX's sudo, is there?

no.  there's nothing like it.  you may wish to read /sys/doc/auth.ps

- erik