[Dazuko-devel] 2.1.0-pre3 posted

[John Ogness]

Hi,

I have finally posted 2.1.0-pre3. The new trusted application framework 
is included. You can read about how it works in the README.trusted file. 
I am really curious to get some feedback about this fairly major new 
feature.

This version also includes a new dazukoInitializeCache() function, which 
can be used to activate kernel-level access caching. This can 
dramatically reduce overhead because the kernel will only report file 
acceses for files that have changed since the last reported event. 
Currently this function only has meaning for RSBAC systems. This 
function will always return error for non-RSBAC systems.

Aside from many small clean-ups and re-organization in the code, this 
version also solves the "flush on close" problem. Up until now, 
registered applications would often not see the final bytes written to a 
file when it is closed. This is because the registered application was 
receiving the close event and reading the file before the kernel 
actually had a chance to flush the data. This problem was originally 
pointed out by Petter Wahlman quite some time ago. The problem has been 
solved by treating CLOSE events as read-only. Since a close was never 
"blockable" anyway, there is no functional penalty for this. This means 
that the kernel actually completes the full close() process (flush 
included) before the registered application receives the close event.

Right now Dazuko uses PID for process identification. I would like to 
move to something more reliable (such as pointer addresses and/or 
process attributes). I would like to do this before releasing 2.1.0. 
Other than that, I feel that the current 2.1.0-pre3 is ready. But I am 
anxious to get some feedback about TAF (trusted application framework). 
This is a feature that has been heavily requested by the developers of 
Dazuko-based applications. I want to make sure that it's been 
implemented in a way that will make everyone happy (if such a thing is 
possible).

John Ogness

--
Dazuko Maintainer