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Message-ID: <3FE0B159.30506@tlinx.org>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:41:13 -0800
From: linda w <cygwin AT tlinx DOT org>
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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: /proc/Registry, other perversities, ala security, ACL's and MS unix services....
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I just noticed (don't say "duh!") /proc/Registry and the fairly well 
fleshed out
Registry fs.   I'd been wanting something like that for a while outside of
cygwin -- and also writeable with speed being equivalent to 
similar/native speeds of
accessing the registry.

I thought wouldn't it be cool to have a fully text/binary compatible 
Registry fs that
could be read/written like any other file except that you'd have "file 
types" in
this file system, with each file being assigned a type corresponding to 
"fixed size
dword, variable length binary, string, multi-string and 
multi-string-expandable, with
a plugin architecture to handle not-yet defined tyes.

Seems like much of that work has been done...but I sure don't remember 
reading about
it in the cygwin user's guide.  I went back to search for /proc in the 
u-guide and
find no reference to /proc at all, let alone /proc/registry.

One thing one might do, right off the bat is eliminate those portions of the
registry that don't exist on a given machine.  For example in Win2000 
and WinXP (and
maybe NT4?) there are no branches "HK_DYN_DATA" or "HK_PERFORMANCE_DATA".

It might be "nice" to show the real structure of the Registry, and 
eliminate the
directories "HKClassesRoot, HKCurrentUser,HKCurrentConfig and make them 
symlinks
to HkLocal_Machine/Software/Classes, HKEY_USERS/<currently logged in 
user>, and
HKlocalmachine/system/currentcontrolset/hardware profiles/current (I 
think that's
the right link for current config)....

Would make the structure of the registry more apparent that under XP, it all
boils down to 2 files, the local-machine file, and the per-user file.

I know NT likes to "simulate" that there are more "tops" or "root keys" in
the registry...but when I was first learning the reg, I only found the
extra keys confusing as they didn't map to the files I knew about....but
its probably not that important, either way.

But...how long has it been there? (../Registry)  Where is it in the 
documentation?
I don't like to ask needless questions, but I'm not sure where in the 
documentation I
was supposed to find this....???

Also,

as for security matters and the emulation of Unix security with NT 
ACL's...if it is
a security hole, does that mean the MS Unix Services product has the 
same hole?

-linda

-- 
---
Capitalism:   The rewarding of software companies for producing software
              of the least quality the consumer will buy.


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