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Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:34:58 +0100
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Deprecating ntea
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Hi,

I think it's time to remove the CYGWIN=ntea setting from Cygwin.
(see http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-cygwinenv.html)

The reason is that it's just a fake.  It fakes POSIX permission bits
by using the "extended attributes" capability built into NTFS.  it
also works on FAT by creating a bulky file in the root directory
of the partition.  Extended attributes were never implemented on FAT32,
so "ntea" could never work on FAT32.

So, IMO, ntea is not at all necessary.  Given that practically all
Windows systems nowadays are using NTFS and given that NTFS supports
real permissions, not only faked ones, I don't see any need for ntea.

I even consider ntea as dangerous, because it pretends a security
which doesn't exist.  That's what the default ntsec setting is for,
utilizing real permission settings.

Ok, that's my opinion, which should make it clear that I think
ntea is old cruft which should be removed from Cygwin.

My questions are thus: Does anybody seriously use ntea?  Do you think
you can't live without it?  Is using ntsec or just switching off
ntsec no option for you?  Why?  Or, to phrase it as I did on the
cygwin-developers list:

Does anybody have a good argument to keep this cruft against all reason?


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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