[OpenAFS-devel] Soft mounts for /afs root

Ted McCabe ted@MIT.EDU
Thu, 14 Jun 2001 12:47:58 -0400


At 12:21 PM -0400 6/14/01, Derek Atkins wrote:
>Ted McCabe <ted@MIT.EDU> writes:
>
>>  I have a lot of trouble picturing how the implicit approach would
>>  make sense to a user.
>
>Really?  The automounter, which does implicit mounting, has been in
>wide use for many years and users seem to understand it.  Similarly,
>'attach' (which is more like a manual automounter) is just as 'hard'
>to understand.  Indeed, I can see arguments either way.

'attach' is explicit.  I'll admit to no practical experience with the 
automounter, so perhaps you have a point there.

>From a security standpoint, I think the decision to be implicit or
>explicit should be a run-time option.  As a user, I'd very much like
>the implicit method.  That would certainly solve the 'FileViewer'
>problem because only previously-accessed cells would show up in
>a listing of /afs.

I think the implicit method would simply replace one 'FileViewer' 
problem with another, more serious problem; namely how does the user 
make that initial, implicit access?

    --Ted