1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
|
Announcing resmgr-1.0
=====================
resmgr is a resource manager that will provide unprivileged users
access to device files. This is a common problem for people
writing hardware drivers etc that should be used by "ordinary"
users, such as usb cameras, scanners, CD writers, audio devices,
etc etc: how do you grant desktop users access to the device
without compromising the security of your system?
Making devices accessible to everyone is usually not an option
(consider microphones, usb cameras, etc); making the applications
setuid root has lead to so many security problems in the past
that the approach should be considered a dead end; and changing
the ownership of device files on login/logout does solve many
problems but falls short when it comes to USB devices.
One solution to this is to create a resource manager daemon
that will open the devices on behalf of the user, and pass
the file descriptor to the user's application via an AF_LOCAL
socket. This is what resmgr does.
Location
========
resmgr is available from
ftp://ftp.lst.de/pub/people/okir/resmgr
This directory also contains patches for various applications to
enable resmgr support.
There is currently no mailing list for resmgr users or developers;
if you have questions, please mail me at okir@suse.de.
Olaf Kirch
April 10, 2003
|
