4 ms·

I'm curious. To me, unveil means reveal information, while the intended purpose for this tool is to hide it. Why do you think it's such a descriptive name?

danielparks 8y ago
Yeah, that was my thought too. This is more like “veil_except”. That said, “unveil” is good enough.
- amelius 8y ago
  Why not "restrict"?
  - MaxBarraclough 8y ago
    Here be dragons! "restrict" is a keyword in C.
makecheck 8y ago
It is stated in the 2nd line of the Description in the manual that this will reveal things with subsequent calls. It’s just the initial call that hides everything.
jakobegger 8y ago
While it implicitely hides everything on the first call, it unveils the arguments. Reads really natural. I imagine typical usage would be: fork(); unveil("/home/jakob/", "w"); unveil("/etc/some_config_file", "r"); unveil(0,0); exec();
- apengwin 8y ago
  what do the 0,0 mean here?
  - r1ch 8y ago
    Disallows further use of unveil()
- masklinn 8y ago
  > While it implicitely hides everything on the first call I think that's the really weird bit, I guess they didn't want multiple functions but it would make more sense to veil() (hide everything), unveil(path, mode) (show that path) and lockveil(), something along those lines. Or maybe use some sort of mode constants e.g. veil(VEIL_INIT), veil(VEIL_REVEAL, path, mode), veil(VEIL_LOCK).
  - shoo 8y ago
    The end game might be that everything is veiled by default, so if you have no unveil calls then your process can't read anything
    - masklinn 8y ago
      That would work just as well with a better API. The initial call would just become a no-op at that point.
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    What benefit would requiring veil() before unveil() have? There is no point in calling unveil() if the file system isn't hidden. Making the hiding implicit reduces the number of possible mistakes people can make when using the API.
    - daveFNbuck 8y ago
      You could be more sure that something else didn't already unveil things you want hidden in your current invocation.
amelius 8y ago
Tbh, to me the title "Unveil parts of a restricted filesystem view" read like it was about a hack.

danielparks 8y ago

Yeah, that was my thought too. This is more like “veil_except”. That said, “unveil” is good enough.

amelius 8y ago
Why not "restrict"?
- MaxBarraclough 8y ago
  Here be dragons! "restrict" is a keyword in C.

makecheck 8y ago

It is stated in the 2nd line of the Description in the manual that this will reveal things with subsequent calls. It’s just the initial call that hides everything.

jakobegger 8y ago

While it implicitely hides everything on the first call, it unveils the arguments. Reads really natural. I imagine typical usage would be: fork(); unveil("/home/jakob/", "w"); unveil("/etc/some_config_file", "r"); unveil(0,0); exec();

apengwin 8y ago
what do the 0,0 mean here?
- r1ch 8y ago
  Disallows further use of unveil()
masklinn 8y ago
> While it implicitely hides everything on the first call I think that's the really weird bit, I guess they didn't want multiple functions but it would make more sense to veil() (hide everything), unveil(path, mode) (show that path) and lockveil(), something along those lines. Or maybe use some sort of mode constants e.g. veil(VEIL_INIT), veil(VEIL_REVEAL, path, mode), veil(VEIL_LOCK).
- shoo 8y ago
  The end game might be that everything is veiled by default, so if you have no unveil calls then your process can't read anything
  - masklinn 8y ago
    That would work just as well with a better API. The initial call would just become a no-op at that point.
- jakobegger 8y ago
  What benefit would requiring veil() before unveil() have? There is no point in calling unveil() if the file system isn't hidden. Making the hiding implicit reduces the number of possible mistakes people can make when using the API.
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    You could be more sure that something else didn't already unveil things you want hidden in your current invocation.

amelius 8y ago

Tbh, to me the title "Unveil parts of a restricted filesystem view" read like it was about a hack.