X-Git-Url: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~ianmdlvl/git?p=elogind.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=FAQ;h=45337bf635174adb2d1d2cc53d17653439614396;hp=d9aebde0da6e75adfb94421b14b09a648733d551;hb=396bb4c3d33dfd68c5817da5e03251fbd82e2713;hpb=10a479f5e6df7010a47f1edfab8173de85a34d0d diff --git a/FAQ b/FAQ index d9aebde0d..45337bf63 100644 --- a/FAQ +++ b/FAQ @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ A: To quote Al Viro (Linux VFS kernel maintainer): - the former had stayed around for many months with maintainer claiming that everything works fine - the latter had stayed, period. - - the devfs maintainer/author disappeared and stoped maintaining + - the devfs maintainer/author disappeared and stopped maintaining the code. Q: But udev will not automatically load a driver if a /dev node is opened @@ -44,10 +44,16 @@ A: Such a functionality isn't needed on a properly configured system. All hardware in memory, then use something else to manage your modules (scripts, modules.conf, etc.) This is not a task for udev. +Q: But I love that feature of devfs, please? +A: The devfs approach caused a lot of spurious modprobe attempts as + programs probed to see if devices were present or not. Every probe + attempt created a process to run modprobe, almost all of which were + spurious. + Q: I really like the devfs naming scheme, will udev do that? A: Yes, udev can create /dev nodes using the devfs naming policy. A configuration file needs to be created to map the kernel default names - to the devfs names. See the initial udev.conf.devfs file in the udev + to the devfs names. See the initial udev.rules.devfs file in the udev release. It is the start of such a configuration file. If there are any things missing, please let the udev authors know. @@ -78,6 +84,33 @@ Q: How will udev handle devices found before init runs? A: udev will be placed in initramfs and run for every device that is found. Work to get this implemented is still underway. +Q: Can I use udev to automount a USB device when I connect it? +A: Technically, yes, but udev is not intended for this. Projects that do + automount hotplugged storage devices are: + * Usb-mount http://users.actrix.co.nz/michael/usbmount.html + * devlabel http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml#devlabel + + Alternatively, it is easy to add the following to fstab: + /udev/pendrive /pendrive vfat user,noauto 0 0 + + This means that users can access the device with: + $ mount /pendrive + And don't have to be root but will get full permissions on /pendrive. + This works even without udev if /udev/pendrive is replaced by /dev/sda1 + +Q: Are there any security issues that I should be aware of? +A: When using dynamic device numbers, a given pair of major/minor numbers may + point to different hardware over time. If a user has permission to access a + specific device node directly and is able to create hard links to this node, + he or she can do so to create a copy of the device node. When the device is + unplugged and udev removes the device node, the user's copy remains. + If the device node is later recreated with different permissions the hard + link can still be used to access the device using the old permissions. + (The same problem exists when using PAM to change permissions on login.) + + The simplest solution is to prevent the creation of hard links by putting + /dev in a separate filesystem (tmpfs, ramfs, ...). + Q: I have other questions about udev, where do I ask them? A: The linux-hotplug-devel mailing list is the proper place for it. The address for it is linux-hotplug-devel@lists.sourceforge.net