netdev - Re: [PATCH] ethtool: allow non-netadmin to query settings

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Message-ID: <1282598678.2267.85.camel@achroite.uk.solarflarecom.com>
Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:24:38 +0100
From:	Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com>
To:	Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@...tta.com>
Cc:	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@...ox.com>, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ethtool: allow non-netadmin to query settings

On Mon, 2010-08-23 at 13:24 -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> The SNMP daemon uses ethtool to determine the speed of
> network interfaces. This fails on Debian (and probably elsewhere)
> because for security SNMP daemon runs as non-root user (snmp).
> 
> Note: A similar patch was rejected previously because of a concern about
> the possibility that on some hardware querying the ethtool settings
> requires access to the PHY and could slow the machine down.  But the
> security risk of requiring SNMP daemon (and related services)
> to run as root far out weighs the risk of denial-of-service.
[...]

Speed and duplex are now exposed through world-readable attributes in
sysfs.  Currently this is implemented by calling the ethtool
get_settings() operations but that could be improved on by adding speed
and duplex fields to struct net_device or by allowing drivers to
implement a cheaper operation that provides just this information.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare Communications
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.

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