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[Xen-users] hostfs for xen? (was: Is using w! safe to share data between

To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Xen-users] hostfs for xen? (was: Is using w! safe to share data between domains?)
From: Nils Toedtmann <xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 01:29:16 +0200
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Am Donnerstag, den 19.05.2005, 05:37 -0400 schrieb John A. Sullivan
III: 
> I have a slightly unusual situation where I need to pass data from one
> domain to another but, for security reasons, one of the domains will not
> be on the network.  I would like to pass the data via a shared disk
> partition.  I would like to know if what I have done is safe.

UML has a neat & simple solution for sharing filesystems between the
guests and the host (that's UML speak, read "between the domUs and
dom0"): hostfs. The host can assign a "hostfs-root-dir" to a guest; the
guest may then mount any subdir of that directly into its own filesystem
(like a bindmount). Read/write operations get mapped to a uid on the
host (that mapping comes naturally since a UML guest is nothing but a
process on the host owned by that uid). Hostfs is really cool in
situations where nfs would be overkill or considered a security risk (i
admit: i do not know if hostfs actually _is_ more secure than nfs, or -
if not - if it could be designed in a secure manner. It just appears to
be more secure due to its simplicity).

Would such a thing be interesting for xen? Or would that be too evil? I
really missed hostfs when i switched from UML to xen.

/nils.


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