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What's abnormal about the way Android uses the Unix user and permissions model?
by jbrechtel 14y ago
What's abnormal about the way Android uses the Unix user and permissions model?
- njs12345 14y agoFor a start, it uses a special group to denote 'this process can access the internet', requiring a kernel patch: http://elinux.org/Android_Security#Paranoid_network-ing http://elinux.org/Android_Security#Paranoid_network-ing
- jlgreco 14y agoDon't they make each application you use run with it's own user?
- manmal 14y agoYes. I guess that's what the grandparent means. I don't find it abnormal, it's a very good practice - create user accounts for public-facing processes and give them as minimal rights as possible. Still, the possibility to somehow break out and gain root exists.
- jlgreco 14y agoIt is unusual in that usually applications meant to be consumed locally by the owner of the device are not considered "public-facing". It is something usually done with servers or daemons, not web browsers and text editors.
- jbrechtel 14y agoYeah, I figured that is what was being referred to...it didn't strike me as abnormal though, but I guess it is. In practice this hasn't caused me any problems while developing on Android. Anyone else negatively impacted by this?
- elehack 14y agoDidn't intend to imply anything negative by "abnormal". It just isn't the "traditional" way to use processes for a user-facing, semi-desktop system. But given Android's special-purpose, single-user nature, it is a perfectly logical system (and quite clever, really). It just isn't the way users are used e.g. on my Fedora laptop.