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authorLachlan McIlroy <lachlan@redback.melbourne.sgi.com>2008-12-29 16:47:18 +1100
committerLachlan McIlroy <lachlan@redback.melbourne.sgi.com>2008-12-29 16:47:18 +1100
commit0a8c5395f90f06d128247844b2515c8bf3f2826b (patch)
treed95382dcdfa303b99d480c01763d6cb6767fdaca /Documentation
parent25051158bbed127e8672b43396c71c5eb610e5f1 (diff)
parent3c92ec8ae91ecf59d88c798301833d7cf83f2179 (diff)
[XFS] Fix merge failures
Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6 Conflicts: fs/xfs/linux-2.6/xfs_cred.h fs/xfs/linux-2.6/xfs_globals.h fs/xfs/linux-2.6/xfs_ioctl.c fs/xfs/xfs_vnodeops.h Signed-off-by: Lachlan McIlroy <lachlan@sgi.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/DocBook/Makefile2
-rw-r--r--Documentation/DocBook/networking.tmpl3
-rw-r--r--Documentation/DocBook/wanbook.tmpl99
-rw-r--r--Documentation/RCU/rculist_nulls.txt167
-rw-r--r--Documentation/controllers/cpuacct.txt32
-rw-r--r--Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt6
-rw-r--r--Documentation/credentials.txt582
-rw-r--r--Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt19
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt9
-rw-r--r--Documentation/ftrace.txt149
-rw-r--r--Documentation/kbuild/makefiles.txt14
-rw-r--r--Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt71
-rw-r--r--Documentation/markers.txt29
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/README.ipw22002
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/bonding.txt68
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/dccp.txt32
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/driver.txt2
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/generic-hdlc.txt8
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/ip-sysctl.txt6
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/mac80211_hwsim/README9
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/netdevices.txt2
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/regulatory.txt22
-rw-r--r--Documentation/nmi_watchdog.txt5
-rw-r--r--Documentation/powerpc/dts-bindings/fsl/tsec.txt12
-rw-r--r--Documentation/rfkill.txt20
-rw-r--r--Documentation/scheduler/sched-arch.txt4
-rw-r--r--Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt21
-rw-r--r--Documentation/sh/kgdb.txt179
-rw-r--r--Documentation/sound/alsa/ALSA-Configuration.txt330
-rw-r--r--Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio-Models.txt348
-rw-r--r--Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio.txt577
-rw-r--r--Documentation/sound/alsa/Procfile.txt10
-rw-r--r--Documentation/sound/alsa/soc/machine.txt8
-rw-r--r--Documentation/tracepoints.txt94
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/boot.txt6
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/pat.txt24
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/x86_64/boot-options.txt11
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/x86_64/mm.txt2
38 files changed, 2208 insertions, 776 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/DocBook/Makefile b/Documentation/DocBook/Makefile
index 9b1f6ca100d1..0a08126d3094 100644
--- a/Documentation/DocBook/Makefile
+++ b/Documentation/DocBook/Makefile
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
# To add a new book the only step required is to add the book to the
# list of DOCBOOKS.
-DOCBOOKS := wanbook.xml z8530book.xml mcabook.xml \
+DOCBOOKS := z8530book.xml mcabook.xml \
kernel-hacking.xml kernel-locking.xml deviceiobook.xml \
procfs-guide.xml writing_usb_driver.xml networking.xml \
kernel-api.xml filesystems.xml lsm.xml usb.xml kgdb.xml \
diff --git a/Documentation/DocBook/networking.tmpl b/Documentation/DocBook/networking.tmpl
index f24f9e85e4ae..627707a3cb9d 100644
--- a/Documentation/DocBook/networking.tmpl
+++ b/Documentation/DocBook/networking.tmpl
@@ -98,9 +98,6 @@
X!Enet/core/wireless.c
</sect1>
-->
- <sect1><title>Synchronous PPP</title>
-!Edrivers/net/wan/syncppp.c
- </sect1>
</chapter>
</book>
diff --git a/Documentation/DocBook/wanbook.tmpl b/Documentation/DocBook/wanbook.tmpl
deleted file mode 100644
index 8c93db122f04..000000000000
--- a/Documentation/DocBook/wanbook.tmpl
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,99 +0,0 @@
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
- "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" []>
-
-<book id="WANGuide">
- <bookinfo>
- <title>Synchronous PPP and Cisco HDLC Programming Guide</title>
-
- <authorgroup>
- <author>
- <firstname>Alan</firstname>
- <surname>Cox</surname>
- <affiliation>
- <address>
- <email>alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk</email>
- </address>
- </affiliation>
- </author>
- </authorgroup>
-
- <copyright>
- <year>2000</year>
- <holder>Alan Cox</holder>
- </copyright>
-
- <legalnotice>
- <para>
- This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
- it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
- License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
- version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
- version.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
- useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
- warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
- See the GNU General Public License for more details.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
- License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
- Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
- MA 02111-1307 USA
- </para>
-
- <para>
- For more details see the file COPYING in the source
- distribution of Linux.
- </para>
- </legalnotice>
- </bookinfo>
-
-<toc></toc>
-
- <chapter id="intro">
- <title>Introduction</title>
- <para>
- The syncppp drivers in Linux provide a fairly complete
- implementation of Cisco HDLC and a minimal implementation of
- PPP. The longer term goal is to switch the PPP layer to the
- generic PPP interface that is new in Linux 2.3.x. The API should
- remain unchanged when this is done, but support will then be
- available for IPX, compression and other PPP features
- </para>
- </chapter>
- <chapter id="bugs">
- <title>Known Bugs And Assumptions</title>
- <para>
- <variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term>PPP is minimal</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- The current PPP implementation is very basic, although sufficient
- for most wan usages.
- </para>
- </listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Cisco HDLC Quirks</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Currently we do not end all packets with the correct Cisco multicast
- or unicast flags. Nothing appears to mind too much but this should
- be corrected.
- </para>
- </listitem></varlistentry>
- </variablelist>
-
- </para>
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="pubfunctions">
- <title>Public Functions Provided</title>
-!Edrivers/net/wan/syncppp.c
- </chapter>
-
-</book>
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/rculist_nulls.txt b/Documentation/RCU/rculist_nulls.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..239f542d48ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/rculist_nulls.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,167 @@
+Using hlist_nulls to protect read-mostly linked lists and
+objects using SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU allocations.
+
+Please read the basics in Documentation/RCU/listRCU.txt
+
+Using special makers (called 'nulls') is a convenient way
+to solve following problem :
+
+A typical RCU linked list managing objects which are
+allocated with SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU kmem_cache can
+use following algos :
+
+1) Lookup algo
+--------------
+rcu_read_lock()
+begin:
+obj = lockless_lookup(key);
+if (obj) {
+ if (!try_get_ref(obj)) // might fail for free objects
+ goto begin;
+ /*
+ * Because a writer could delete object, and a writer could
+ * reuse these object before the RCU grace period, we
+ * must check key after geting the reference on object
+ */
+ if (obj->key != key) { // not the object we expected
+ put_ref(obj);
+ goto begin;
+ }
+}
+rcu_read_unlock();
+
+Beware that lockless_lookup(key) cannot use traditional hlist_for_each_entry_rcu()
+but a version with an additional memory barrier (smp_rmb())
+
+lockless_lookup(key)
+{
+ struct hlist_node *node, *next;
+ for (pos = rcu_dereference((head)->first);
+ pos && ({ next = pos->next; smp_rmb(); prefetch(next); 1; }) &&
+ ({ tpos = hlist_entry(pos, typeof(*tpos), member); 1; });
+ pos = rcu_dereference(next))
+ if (obj->key == key)
+ return obj;
+ return NULL;
+
+And note the traditional hlist_for_each_entry_rcu() misses this smp_rmb() :
+
+ struct hlist_node *node;
+ for (pos = rcu_dereference((head)->first);
+ pos && ({ prefetch(pos->next); 1; }) &&
+ ({ tpos = hlist_entry(pos, typeof(*tpos), member); 1; });
+ pos = rcu_dereference(pos->next))
+ if (obj->key == key)
+ return obj;
+ return NULL;
+}
+
+Quoting Corey Minyard :
+
+"If the object is moved from one list to another list in-between the
+ time the hash is calculated and the next field is accessed, and the
+ object has moved to the end of a new list, the traversal will not
+ complete properly on the list it should have, since the object will
+ be on the end of the new list and there's not a way to tell it's on a
+ new list and restart the list traversal. I think that this can be
+ solved by pre-fetching the "next" field (with proper barriers) before
+ checking the key."
+
+2) Insert algo :
+----------------
+
+We need to make sure a reader cannot read the new 'obj->obj_next' value
+and previous value of 'obj->key'. Or else, an item could be deleted
+from a chain, and inserted into another chain. If new chain was empty
+before the move, 'next' pointer is NULL, and lockless reader can
+not detect it missed following items in original chain.
+
+/*
+ * Please note that new inserts are done at the head of list,
+ * not in the middle or end.
+ */
+obj = kmem_cache_alloc(...);
+lock_chain(); // typically a spin_lock()
+obj->key = key;
+atomic_inc(&obj->refcnt);
+/*
+ * we need to make sure obj->key is updated before obj->next
+ */
+smp_wmb();
+hlist_add_head_rcu(&obj->obj_node, list);
+unlock_chain(); // typically a spin_unlock()
+
+
+3) Remove algo
+--------------
+Nothing special here, we can use a standard RCU hlist deletion.
+But thanks to SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU, beware a deleted object can be reused
+very very fast (before the end of RCU grace period)
+
+if (put_last_reference_on(obj) {
+ lock_chain(); // typically a spin_lock()
+ hlist_del_init_rcu(&obj->obj_node);
+ unlock_chain(); // typically a spin_unlock()
+ kmem_cache_free(cachep, obj);
+}
+
+
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+With hlist_nulls we can avoid extra smp_rmb() in lockless_lookup()
+and extra smp_wmb() in insert function.
+
+For example, if we choose to store the slot number as the 'nulls'
+end-of-list marker for each slot of the hash table, we can detect
+a race (some writer did a delete and/or a move of an object
+to another chain) checking the final 'nulls' value if
+the lookup met the end of chain. If final 'nulls' value
+is not the slot number, then we must restart the lookup at
+the begining. If the object was moved to same chain,
+then the reader doesnt care : It might eventually
+scan the list again without harm.
+
+
+1) lookup algo
+
+ head = &table[slot];
+ rcu_read_lock();
+begin:
+ hlist_nulls_for_each_entry_rcu(obj, node, head, member) {
+ if (obj->key == key) {
+ if (!try_get_ref(obj)) // might fail for free objects
+ goto begin;
+ if (obj->key != key) { // not the object we expected
+ put_ref(obj);
+ goto begin;
+ }
+ goto out;
+ }
+/*
+ * if the nulls value we got at the end of this lookup is
+ * not the expected one, we must restart lookup.
+ * We probably met an item that was moved to another chain.
+ */
+ if (get_nulls_value(node) != slot)
+ goto begin;
+ obj = NULL;
+
+out:
+ rcu_read_unlock();
+
+2) Insert function :
+--------------------
+
+/*
+ * Please note that new inserts are done at the head of list,
+ * not in the middle or end.
+ */
+obj = kmem_cache_alloc(cachep);
+lock_chain(); // typically a spin_lock()
+obj->key = key;
+atomic_set(&obj->refcnt, 1);
+/*
+ * insert obj in RCU way (readers might be traversing chain)
+ */
+hlist_nulls_add_head_rcu(&obj->obj_node, list);
+unlock_chain(); // typically a spin_unlock()
diff --git a/Documentation/controllers/cpuacct.txt b/Documentation/controllers/cpuacct.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..bb775fbe43d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/controllers/cpuacct.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+CPU Accounting Controller
+-------------------------
+
+The CPU accounting controller is used to group tasks using cgroups and
+account the CPU usage of these groups of tasks.
+
+The CPU accounting controller supports multi-hierarchy groups. An accounting
+group accumulates the CPU usage of all of its child groups and the tasks
+directly present in its group.
+
+Accounting groups can be created by first mounting the cgroup filesystem.
+
+# mkdir /cgroups
+# mount -t cgroup -ocpuacct none /cgroups
+
+With the above step, the initial or the parent accounting group
+becomes visible at /cgroups. At bootup, this group includes all the
+tasks in the system. /cgroups/tasks lists the tasks in this cgroup.
+/cgroups/cpuacct.usage gives the CPU time (in nanoseconds) obtained by
+this group which is essentially the CPU time obtained by all the tasks
+in the system.
+
+New accounting groups can be created under the parent group /cgroups.
+
+# cd /cgroups
+# mkdir g1
+# echo $$ > g1
+
+The above steps create a new group g1 and move the current shell
+process (bash) into it. CPU time consumed by this bash and its children
+can be obtained from g1/cpuacct.usage and the same is accumulated in
+/cgroups/cpuacct.usage also.
diff --git a/Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt b/Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt
index 4f3f3840320e..e3443ddcfb89 100644
--- a/Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt
+++ b/Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt
@@ -93,10 +93,8 @@ Several "PowerBook" and "iBook2" notebooks are supported.
1.5 SuperH
----------
-The following SuperH processors are supported by cpufreq:
-
-SH-3
-SH-4
+All SuperH processors supporting rate rounding through the clock
+framework are supported by cpufreq.
1.6 Blackfin
------------
diff --git a/Documentation/credentials.txt b/Documentation/credentials.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..df03169782ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/credentials.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,582 @@
+ ====================
+ CREDENTIALS IN LINUX
+ ====================
+
+By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
+
+Contents:
+
+ (*) Overview.
+
+ (*) Types of credentials.
+
+ (*) File markings.
+
+ (*) Task credentials.
+
+ - Immutable credentials.
+ - Accessing task credentials.
+ - Accessing another task's credentials.
+ - Altering credentials.
+ - Managing credentials.
+
+ (*) Open file credentials.
+
+ (*) Overriding the VFS's use of credentials.
+
+
+========
+OVERVIEW
+========
+
+There are several parts to the security check performed by Linux when one
+object acts upon another:
+
+ (1) Objects.
+
+ Objects are things in the system that may be acted upon directly by
+ userspace programs. Linux has a variety of actionable objects, including:
+
+ - Tasks
+ - Files/inodes
+ - Sockets
+ - Message queues
+ - Shared memory segments
+ - Semaphores
+ - Keys
+
+ As a part of the description of all these objects there is a set of
+ credentials. What's in the set depends on the type of object.
+
+ (2) Object ownership.
+
+ Amongst the credentials of most objects, there will be a subset that
+ indicates the ownership of that object. This is used for resource
+ accounting and limitation (disk quotas and task rlimits for example).
+
+ In a standard UNIX filesystem, for instance, this will be defined by the
+ UID marked on the inode.
+
+ (3) The objective context.
+
+ Also amongst the credentials of those objects, there will be a subset that
+ indicates the 'objective context' of that object. This may or may not be
+ the same set as in (2) - in standard UNIX files, for instance, this is the
+ defined by the UID and the GID marked on the inode.
+
+ The objective context is used as part of the security calculation that is
+ carried out when an object is acted upon.
+
+ (4) Subjects.
+
+ A subject is an object that is acting upon another object.
+
+ Most of the objects in the system are inactive: they don't act on other
+ objects within the system. Processes/tasks are the obvious exception:
+ they do stuff; they access and manipulate things.
+
+ Objects other than tasks may under some circumstances also be subjects.
+ For instance an open file may send SIGIO to a task using the UID and EUID
+ given to it by a task that called fcntl(F_SETOWN) upon it. In this case,
+ the file struct will have a subjective context too.
+
+ (5) The subjective context.
+
+ A subject has an additional interpretation of its credentials. A subset
+ of its credentials forms the 'subjective context'. The subjective context
+ is used as part of the security calculation that is carried out when a
+ subject acts.
+
+ A Linux task, for example, has the FSUID, FSGID and the supplementary
+ group list for when it is acting upon a file - which are quite separate
+ from the real UID and GID that normally form the objective context of the
+ task.
+
+ (6) Actions.
+
+ Linux has a number of actions available that a subject may perform upon an
+ object. The set of actions available depends on the nature of the subject
+ and the object.
+
+ Actions include reading, writing, creating and deleting files; forking or
+ signalling and tracing tasks.
+
+ (7) Rules, access control lists and security calculations.
+
+ When a subject acts upon an object, a security calculation is made. This
+ involves taking the subjective context, the objective context and the
+ action, and searching one or more sets of rules to see whether the subject
+ is granted or denied permission to act in the desired manner on the
+ object, given those contexts.
+
+ There are two main sources of rules:
+
+ (a) Discretionary access control (DAC):
+
+ Sometimes the object will include sets of rules as part of its
+ description. This is an 'Access Control List' or 'ACL'. A Linux
+ file may supply more than one ACL.
+
+ A traditional UNIX file, for example, includes a permissions mask that
+ is an abbreviated ACL with three fixed classes of subject ('user',
+ 'group' and 'other'), each of which may be granted certain privileges
+ ('read', 'write' and 'execute' - whatever those map to for the object
+ in question). UNIX file permissions do not allow the arbitrary
+ specification of subjects, however, and so are of limited use.
+
+ A Linux file might also sport a POSIX ACL. This is a list of rules
+ that grants various permissions to arbitrary subjects.
+
+ (b) Mandatory access control (MAC):
+
+ The system as a whole may have one or more sets of rules that get
+ applied to all subjects and objects, regardless of their source.
+ SELinux and Smack are examples of this.
+
+ In the case of SELinux and Smack, each object is given a label as part
+ of its credentials. When an action is requested, they take the
+ subject label, the object label and the action and look for a rule
+ that says that this action is either granted or denied.
+
+
+====================
+TYPES OF CREDENTIALS
+====================
+
+The Linux kernel supports the following types of credentials:
+
+ (1) Traditional UNIX credentials.
+
+ Real User ID
+ Real Group ID
+
+ The UID and GID are carried by most, if not all, Linux objects, even if in
+ some cases it has to be invented (FAT or CIFS files for example, which are
+ derived from Windows). These (mostly) define the objective context of
+ that object, with tasks being slightly different in some cases.
+
+ Effective, Saved and FS User ID
+ Effective, Saved and FS Group ID
+ Supplementary groups
+
+ These are additional credentials used by tasks only. Usually, an
+ EUID/EGID/GROUPS will be used as the subjective context, and real UID/GID
+ will be used as the objective. For tasks, it should be noted that this is
+ not always true.
+
+ (2) Capabilities.
+
+ Set of permitted capabilities
+ Set of inheritable capabilities
+ Set of effective capabilities
+ Capability bounding set
+
+ These are only carried by tasks. They indicate superior capabilities
+ granted piecemeal to a task that an ordinary task wouldn't otherwise have.
+ These are manipulated implicitly by changes to the traditional UNIX
+ credentials, but can also be manipulated directly by the capset() system
+ call.
+
+ The permitted capabilities are those caps that the process might grant
+ itself to its effective or permitted sets through capset(). This
+ inheritable set might also be so constrained.
+
+ The effective capabilities are the ones that a task is actually allowed to
+ make use of itself.
+
+ The inheritable capabilities are the ones that may get passed across
+ execve().
+
+ The bounding set limits the capabilities that may be inherited across
+ execve(), especially when a binary is executed that will execute as UID 0.
+
+ (3) Secure management flags (securebits).
+
+ These are only carried by tasks. These govern the way the above
+ credentials are manipulated and inherited over certain operations such as
+ execve(). They aren't used directly as objective or subjective
+ credentials.
+
+ (4) Keys and keyrings.
+
+ These are only carried by tasks. They carry and cache security tokens
+ that don't fit into the other standard UNIX credentials. They are for
+ making such things as network filesystem keys available to the file
+ accesses performed by processes, without the necessity of ordinary
+ programs having to know about security details involved.
+
+ Keyrings are a special type of key. They carry sets of other keys and can
+ be searched for the desired key. Each process may subscribe to a number
+ of keyrings:
+
+ Per-thread keying
+ Per-process keyring
+ Per-session keyring
+
+ When a process accesses a key, if not already present, it will normally be
+ cached on one of these keyrings for future accesses to find.
+
+ For more information on using keys, see Documentation/keys.txt.
+
+ (5) LSM
+
+ The Linux Security Module allows extra controls to be placed over the
+ operations that a task may do. Currently Linux supports two main
+ alternate LSM options: SELinux and Smack.
+
+ Both work by labelling the objects in a system and then applying sets of
+ rules (policies) that say what operations a task with one label may do to
+ an object with another label.
+
+ (6) AF_KEY
+
+ This is a socket-based approach to credential management for networking
+ stacks [RFC 2367]. It isn't discussed by this document as it doesn't
+ interact directly with task and file credentials; rather it keeps system
+ level credentials.
+
+
+When a file is opened, part of the opening task's subjective context is
+recorded in the file struct created. This allows operations using that file
+struct to use those credentials instead of the subjective context of the task
+that issued the operation. An example of this would be a file opened on a
+network filesystem where the credentials of the opened file should be presented
+to the server, regardless of who is actually doing a read or a write upon it.
+
+
+=============
+FILE MARKINGS
+=============
+
+Files on disk or obtained over the network may have annotations that form the
+objective security context of that file. Depending on the type of filesystem,
+this may include one or more of the following:
+
+ (*) UNIX UID, GID, mode;
+
+ (*) Windows user ID;
+
+ (*) Access control list;
+
+ (*) LSM security label;
+
+ (*) UNIX exec privilege escalation bits (SUID/SGID);
+
+ (*) File capabilities exec privilege escalation bits.
+
+These are compared to the task's subjective security context, and certain
+operations allowed or disallowed as a result. In the case of execve(), the
+privilege escalation bits come into play, and may allow the resulting process
+extra privileges, based on the annotations on the executable file.
+
+
+================
+TASK CREDENTIALS
+================
+
+In Linux, all of a task's credentials are held in (uid, gid) or through
+(groups, keys, LSM security) a refcounted structure of type 'struct cred'.
+Each task points to its credentials by a pointer called 'cred' in its
+task_struct.
+
+Once a set of credentials has been prepared and committed, it may not be
+changed, barring the following exceptions:
+
+ (1) its reference count may be changed;
+
+ (2) the reference count on the group_info struct it points to may be changed;
+
+ (3) the reference count on the security data it points to may be changed;
+
+ (4) the reference count on any keyrings it points to may be changed;
+
+ (5) any keyrings it points to may be revoked, expired or have their security
+ attributes changed; and
+
+ (6) the contents of any keyrings to which it points may be changed (the whole
+ point of keyrings being a shared set of credentials, modifiable by anyone
+ with appropriate access).
+
+To alter anything in the cred struct, the copy-and-replace principle must be
+adhered to. First take a copy, then alter the copy and then use RCU to change
+the task pointer to make it point to the new copy. There are wrappers to aid
+with this (see below).
+
+A task may only alter its _own_ credentials; it is no longer permitted for a
+task to alter another's credentials. This means the capset() system call is no
+longer permitted to take any PID other than the one of the current process.
+Also keyctl_instantiate() and keyctl_negate() functions no longer permit
+attachment to process-specific keyrings in the requesting process as the
+instantiating process may need to create them.
+
+
+IMMUTABLE CREDENTIALS
+---------------------
+
+Once a set of credentials has been made public (by calling commit_creds() for
+example), it must be considered immutable, barring two exceptions:
+
+ (1) The reference count may be altered.
+
+ (2) Whilst the keyring subscriptions of a set of credentials may not be
+ changed, the keyrings subscribed to may have their contents altered.
+
+To catch accidental credential alteration at compile time, struct task_struct
+has _const_ pointers to its credential sets, as does struct file. Furthermore,
+certain functions such as get_cred() and put_cred() operate on const pointers,
+thus rendering casts unnecessary, but require to temporarily ditch the const
+qualification to be able to alter the reference count.
+
+
+ACCESSING TASK CREDENTIALS
+--------------------------
+
+A task being able to alter only its own credentials permits the current process
+to read or replace its own credentials without the need for any form of locking
+- which simplifies things greatly. It can just call:
+
+ const struct cred *current_cred()
+
+to get a pointer to its credentials structure, and it doesn't have to release
+it afterwards.
+
+There are convenience wrappers for retrieving specific aspects of a task's
+credentials (the value is simply returned in each case):
+
+ uid_t current_uid(void) Current's real UID
+ gid_t current_gid(void) Current's real GID
+ uid_t current_euid(void) Current's effective UID
+ gid_t current_egid(void) Current's effective GID
+ uid_t current_fsuid(void) Current's file access UID
+ gid_t current_fsgid(void) Current's file access GID
+ kernel_cap_t current_cap(void) Current's effective capabilities
+ void *current_security(void) Current's LSM security pointer
+ struct user_struct *current_user(void) Current's user account
+
+There are also convenience wrappers for retrieving specific associated pairs of
+a task's credentials:
+
+ void current_uid_gid(uid_t *, gid_t *);
+ void current_euid_egid(uid_t *, gid_t *);
+ void current_fsuid_fsgid(uid_t *, gid_t *);