Re: ZFS to support chflags?

On Thu, 12 Apr 2007, Bernd Walter wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 08:04:03PM -0400, John Nielsen wrote:
>
>> I just moved /usr over to a zpool on my -CURRENT system. Performance and 
>> stability are both excellent so far. (Thanks Pawel!) However I noticed that 
>> setting FS flags on files with chflags is not supported. Would it be 
>> feasible to add support for flags on ZFS, and if so are there plans to do 
>> so?
>>
>> If not (and/or in the meantime), are there any places in the base system 
>> where flags are required for normal operation? (/var maybe?)
>
> Some binaries have such flags set, but it is not required, otherwise 
> diskless NFS wouldn't work. I often see installworld warnings about beeing 
> unable to set extended flags on ld.so and others on my diskless boxes.

I'm not a big fan of setting these flags -- I fairly frequently run into 
problems when I installworld an NFS root on the NFS host, then try to work 
with it over NFS from the NFS-booted system, as the flags can't be removed via 
NFS.  They don't offer a security benefit as-installed, and perhaps offer a 
benefit with respect to preventing people from shooting themselves in the foot 
(or perhaps not).

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge