Subject: DAV:executable ?

From: Greg Stein <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 11:56:29 -0800 (PST)

Hi all,

I'd like to add an extension to mod_dav that provides a live property that
can be queried/set, which corresponds to "executable" permissions in a
Unix file system. Joe Orton has also said he'd provide the corresponding
capability on the client. We just need to settle on How To Do It Right, so
I'll come here to ask... :-)

The scenario for this is uploading a CGI script. When the script is first
placed, it won't have the executable flags turned on. The client then
follows up with a PROPPATCH to turn the flags on.

So... I've got a few questions here:

* is there a more general semantic to use? e.g. all permission types
  rather than just executable?

* this doesn't really feel like an ACL -- this is actually stating "this
  resource should be executable", rather than adjusting who can interact
  (and how) with the resource

* should I place this into the DAV: namespace, or use a private one? (I'd
  use http://www.webdav.org/props/ if DAV: wasn't appropriate)

Other comments/suggestions appreciated, as always!

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

---

From: Joe Orton <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 21:39:17 +0000

>   rather than just executable?

This is my worry. Are people going to come along and say "But I want my
scripts to be chmod 0700" (or whatever)? I'm more tempted by a
"unix-permissions" type property, and allowing access to the real file
permissions as an octal value.

Regards,

joe

---

From: Jim Whitehead <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 17:27:30 -0800

> permissions as an octal value.

Here's the slippery slope. What is really needed are more than just
executable permissions.  But, creating just a Unix permissions property
doesn't handle interoperability very well, since it doesn't map especially
well to non-Unix filesystems.  Then, once you start looking at the needed
access permissions for DAV, you realize that the ability to create a
resource, then share it with other users is also important.  Next thing you
know, you're dealing with just about the same set of issues as are in the
access control draft.

Yaron's been promising a new revision of the ACL spec. for some time now,
and I'm anxiously awaiting it.  If you have other ideas on how this should
work, please write them up in either a mail message, or better yet, an
Internet-Draft.  Heck, even writing up the Unix permissions property idea
would be useful, since it would act as a good null-hypothesis to anything
else we come up with.

- Jim