summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/admin-guide/highuid.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2019-07-16 12:21:41 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2019-07-16 12:21:41 -0700
commitc309b6f24222246c18a8b65d3950e6e755440865 (patch)
tree11893170f5c246bb0dee8066e85878af04162ab0 /Documentation/admin-guide/highuid.rst
parent3e859477a1db52a0435d06a55fdb54f62d69c292 (diff)
parent168869492e7009b6861b615f1d030c99bc805e83 (diff)
Merge tag 'docs/v5.3-1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mchehab/linux-media
Pull rst conversion of docs from Mauro Carvalho Chehab: "As agreed with Jon, I'm sending this big series directly to you, c/c him, as this series required a special care, in order to avoid conflicts with other trees" * tag 'docs/v5.3-1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mchehab/linux-media: (77 commits) docs: kbuild: fix build with pdf and fix some minor issues docs: block: fix pdf output docs: arm: fix a breakage with pdf output docs: don't use nested tables docs: gpio: add sysfs interface to the admin-guide docs: locking: add it to the main index docs: add some directories to the main documentation index docs: add SPDX tags to new index files docs: add a memory-devices subdir to driver-api docs: phy: place documentation under driver-api docs: serial: move it to the driver-api docs: driver-api: add remaining converted dirs to it docs: driver-api: add xilinx driver API documentation docs: driver-api: add a series of orphaned documents docs: admin-guide: add a series of orphaned documents docs: cgroup-v1: add it to the admin-guide book docs: aoe: add it to the driver-api book docs: add some documentation dirs to the driver-api book docs: driver-model: move it to the driver-api book docs: lp855x-driver.rst: add it to the driver-api book ...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide/highuid.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/admin-guide/highuid.rst80
1 files changed, 80 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/highuid.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/highuid.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..6ee70465c0ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/highuid.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+===================================================
+Notes on the change from 16-bit UIDs to 32-bit UIDs
+===================================================
+
+:Author: Chris Wing <wingc@umich.edu>
+:Last updated: January 11, 2000
+
+- kernel code MUST take into account __kernel_uid_t and __kernel_uid32_t
+ when communicating between user and kernel space in an ioctl or data
+ structure.
+
+- kernel code should use uid_t and gid_t in kernel-private structures and
+ code.
+
+What's left to be done for 32-bit UIDs on all Linux architectures:
+
+- Disk quotas have an interesting limitation that is not related to the
+ maximum UID/GID. They are limited by the maximum file size on the
+ underlying filesystem, because quota records are written at offsets
+ corresponding to the UID in question.
+ Further investigation is needed to see if the quota system can cope
+ properly with huge UIDs. If it can deal with 64-bit file offsets on all
+ architectures, this should not be a problem.
+
+- Decide whether or not to keep backwards compatibility with the system
+ accounting file, or if we should break it as the comments suggest
+ (currently, the old 16-bit UID and GID are still written to disk, and
+ part of the former pad space is used to store separate 32-bit UID and
+ GID)
+
+- Need to validate that OS emulation calls the 16-bit UID
+ compatibility syscalls, if the OS being emulated used 16-bit UIDs, or
+ uses the 32-bit UID system calls properly otherwise.
+
+ This affects at least:
+
+ - iBCS on Intel
+
+ - sparc32 emulation on sparc64
+ (need to support whatever new 32-bit UID system calls are added to
+ sparc32)
+
+- Validate that all filesystems behave properly.
+
+ At present, 32-bit UIDs _should_ work for:
+
+ - ext2
+ - ufs
+ - isofs
+ - nfs
+ - coda
+ - udf
+
+ Ioctl() fixups have been made for:
+
+ - ncpfs
+ - smbfs
+
+ Filesystems with simple fixups to prevent 16-bit UID wraparound:
+
+ - minix
+ - sysv
+ - qnx4
+
+ Other filesystems have not been checked yet.
+
+- The ncpfs and smpfs filesystems cannot presently use 32-bit UIDs in
+ all ioctl()s. Some new ioctl()s have been added with 32-bit UIDs, but
+ more are needed. (as well as new user<->kernel data structures)
+
+- The ELF core dump format only supports 16-bit UIDs on arm, i386, m68k,
+ sh, and sparc32. Fixing this is probably not that important, but would
+ require adding a new ELF section.
+
+- The ioctl()s used to control the in-kernel NFS server only support
+ 16-bit UIDs on arm, i386, m68k, sh, and sparc32.
+
+- make sure that the UID mapping feature of AX25 networking works properly
+ (it should be safe because it's always used a 32-bit integer to
+ communicate between user and kernel)