From: hpa@merle.acns.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP) Subject: Re: Access control lists and Linux Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 16:38:28 GMT
In article <1qo2p8$8aj@walt.ee.pdx.edu> of comp.os.linux,
gary@acacia (Gary Moyer) writes:
>
> We're back at the square where we started from. The main, and most important
> advantage I can see, to ACL's is that you have an _independent_ access level
> that cannot be compromised by the lower level access levels (i.e. unix
> file permissions).
>
Well, the UNIX access bits is really only an ACL compressed into nine
bits and two fields (owner, group). Theoretically, you could put your
ACL's in /etc/group; then you wouldn't even need anything in the file
system. However, that is rather clumsy and only possible as root.
The advantage of ACL's over rwx bits is that ACL's provide a lot more
fine-grained control of who can access what files. There is nothing
that keeps it from working with rwx bits.
/hpa
-- INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu FINGER: hpa@eecs.nwu.edu BITNET: HPA@NUACC IBM MAIL: 36073 at IBMX400 HAM RADIO: N9ITP, SM4TKN NeXTMAIL: hpa@speedy.acns.nwu.edu Heja Sverige friskt humör! EG väntar utanför! :-)