linux-kernel - Re: fanotify - overall design before I start sending patches

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Date:	Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:48:28 -0400
From:	Jon Masters <jonathan@...masters.org>
To:	Eric Paris <eparis@...hat.com>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org,
	malware-list@...sg.printk.net, Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu,
	greg@...ah.com, douglas.leeder@...hos.com, tytso@....edu,
	arjan@...radead.org, david@...g.hm, jengelh@...ozas.de,
	aviro@...hat.com, mrkafk@...il.com, alexl@...hat.com, jack@...e.cz,
	tvrtko.ursulin@...hos.com, a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl,
	hch@...radead.org, alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk, mmorley@....in,
	pavel@...e.cz
Subject: Re: fanotify - overall design before I start sending patches

On Fri, 2009-07-24 at 16:13 -0400, Eric Paris wrote:

> I plan to start sending patches for fanotify in the next week or two.

Generally, I appreciate your effort (as I'm sure does everyone else).

I agree with Jamie that it's good to consider extending inotify and also
that the special socket idea probably won't work for mainline. Also:

1). Ability to watch only certain mount-points, not just directories. Or
directories and block on mount operations as Jamie suggested. Or both :)

2). Add event on mmap perhaps. Future theoretical cloud cuckoo land
ideas include forcing all mmap operations to be read-only and then
having the page fault handler fire an event for every write so that the
anti-malware thing can monitor every single touched page...joke.

3). Sounds a lot like netlink could be close enough. Kay and others have
been playing with in-kernel multiplexing and re-broadcasting of netlink
events, and I'm pretty sure most of the rest is doable.

I'm looking forward to updatedb using this. Let's try up-playing the use
cases outside malware for this stuff. I think the average person is
going to get more excited to see "Beagle done right" or "something like
Microsoft indexer service"[0] than 1970s updatedb. It's certainly a nice
and compelling reason to get this into mainline IMO.

Jon.

[0] Except anything but as crap as their version. Seriously, the last
time I used a Windows system and looked at it, the indexer was consuming
more CPU than Beagle ever did. And I liked the Beagle concept.

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