From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <eae11900f9c096283ccd2c5ce215eb67@mail.gmx.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] group permission
From: "Sascha Retzki" <sretzki@gmx.de>
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 22:37:59 +0200
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Got a nice collection...

> For the rest of the world, collaboration facilities must be managed as
> offices are managed. The ACL is analogous to the list of individuals who
> have keys to a particular facility. In this situation the teacher needs
> to own and control the drop slot, a "device" within the office to which
> he/she controls the ACL and into which users can place files that can
> only be read by the owner/manager of the room. Relying upon users to
> create and manage groups for this kind of thing is not realistic.

I think the 'group owner' is the one you are looking for. Besides chgrp allowed  for regular users, I still think the group-owner-thing rocks and it should be there. (I actually just read about 'group owners' once, loved the idea, and expected the tools to exist.. they don't? :((    )

> There is another solution.
>
> Bob can create a directory, say /bob/submit,
> and make it group bob and mode 777.
> Then alice and carol can each run
>     mkdir /bob/submit/$user
>     chmod 770 /bob/submit/$user
> and put their files in that new directory,
> which is owned by them but has group bob.

I don't think that is a solution - but a nice workarround ;)

(Not to think about explaining two pupils, office clerks, $whatever for the millionth time how that actually works)


> Nothing terrible might happen but the current design is a
> well-considered choice.  I'd like to be won over by a technical
> argument before sanctioning a change.


I think creating a real interface instead of making the users use 'tricks' is simply the right thing. At least to a certain degree.

Yes I agree, that 'degree' may be something different to you ;)

If that does not satisfy you:
	Maybe that sounds stupid, but what is a 'technical' argument then?


>  Maybe it's a holdover from Unix worth
> getting rid of.  It's almost certainly a one-line change
> to fossil.

great. :)


> The right solution is probably a way to talk to a file
> server to create a new group (owned by the
> user who created it) and also to edit existing groups,
> subject to the documented permissions.


Sorry, one last thing: There must be an intermediet step that I miss, why create new groups (is that a DoS? Create new groups in a for-loop, named pretty much the same, to make maintaince-time extra expensive?)?


Mfg, Sascha