[GLLUG] Does anyone use Linux capabilities ?

[Alain Williams]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 04:55:45PM +0000, Justin Perreault wrote:
> On Tue, 2014-10-28 at 16:47 +0000, Alain Williams wrote:
> > Just wondering ... these have been in the kernel for getting on to 20 years. One
> > of those things on my 'must get round to learning & using' list.
> > 
> > Do any of you use them ? If so, what for ?
> > 
> > If you do not know what I am talking about go:
> > 
> >     man capabilities
> 
> From reading man capabilities it looks like many of the functions are
> part/core to commonly used commands like chown. 

What they do is say if a process is capable of doing something. The idea was to
remove the binary 'you are root and can do anything' and 'you cannot do a bunch
of things'.

Eg: you need CAP_CHOWN to change file ownership.

> Are there particular cap_???? you are wondering about?

No.

-- 
Alain Williams
Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
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