Re: /proc/Registry, other perversities, ala security, ACL's and MS unix services....

[Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>]

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, linda w wrote:

> 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.

FWIW, there is an inherent mapping problem since the Registry may use
characters in key and value names that are not legal POSIX filename
characters.  Try, for example, accessing the Cygwin mount values through
/proc/registry...

> 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.

<http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PTC>

> 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".

<http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PTC>

> 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.

<http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PTC>

> But...how long has it been there? (../Registry)

$ cvs annotate winsup/cygwin/fhandler_registry.cc | head -1
1.1          (cgf      02-May-02): /* fhandler_registry.cc: fhandler for /proc/registry virtual filesystem
$

Also <http://google.com/search?q=cygwin+%2Fproc%2Fregistry>.

> Where is it in the documentation?

<http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2002-05/msg00066.html>
<http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PTC>

> I don't like to ask needless questions, but I'm not sure where in the
> documentation I was supposed to find this....???

Modulo the old saying that code is not documentation, see
winsup/cygwin/fhandler_registry.cc.

> 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

Don't know, sorry.
	Igor
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