Alan Cox (alan@xxxxxxxxxx):
> > That seems silly. /dev/rtc is useless unless you can get > 64hz
> > from it, but it's also (annoyingly!) exclusive, one user only.
> > Seems like alot of bother for me to honour premissions on the device
> > when I'm just going to be cruel and get higher resolution from it,
> > and furthermore require user to set up groups if they don't want
> > people stealing it away.
>
> Well you can set the maximum user timing via /proc too btw.
Yeah, I'm aware. There was much rejoicing. :)
> Also I agree 64Hz is a dumb limit - its from the days of pedal powered
> 386 computers. I guess I should fix that for 2.5
I guess my annoyance is more that only one user can use /dev/rtc at
once, and there are now alot of applications which use it. The
exclusivity of it means that even if a user app has it, my root-enabled
tvtime can't. Thus making the permissions check on the device file
annoying, since the more apps that have permissions on the file, the
more apps that can steal it from tvtime (and needlessly if they don't
have root access) :)
> > Ok, thanks for the advice. I'm not sure what error message to report
> > if that fails. Will it return -1 under any consistent operating
> > conditions?
>
> In the presence of something like NSA secure linux yes, ditto RSBAC and
> any random future security systems. Always test
I understand the need to test, just not what I could possibly tell the
user to do if it happens. I currently say:
fprintf( stderr, "tvtime: Unknown problems dropping "
"root access: %s\n", strerror( errno ) );
... before quitting the app. But I was just wondering if there's a
possible reason that might account for it failing. Right now that's a
little vague.
--
Billy Biggs
vektor@xxxxxxxxxxxx
