[ofa-general] Allowing end-users to query for fabric information

[Mike Heinz]

Thanks for the explanation. 


--
Michael Heinz
Principal Engineer, Qlogic Corporation
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania

-----Original Message-----
From: Roland Dreier [mailto:rdreier at cisco.com] 
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 3:18 PM
To: Mike Heinz
Cc: general at lists.openfabrics.org
Subject: Re: [ofa-general] Allowing end-users to query for fabric
information

 > What was the reason for making this design choice? While I could  >
certainly provide boot scripts to change the permissions to  >
/dev/infiniband/umad*, I'd rather understand why the decision was made
> to restrict access.

because /dev/infiniband/umadX allows full unfiltered access to
send/receive any MADs.  Including changing routing tables, bringing
ports down, etc.  Not stuff that unprivileged users should be able to
do.

It would make sense to have a higher-level interface that only allows
safe queries without side effects, but that's quite a bit more work than
just changing permissions on device nodes.

 - R.