Re: Bug #608185: btrfs-tools: balance tree action should be only triggered by root

[Aron Xu <happyaron.xu@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 21:53, Aron Xu <happyaron.xu@gmail.com> wrote:
> Package: btrfs-tools
> Version: 0.19+20100601-3, 0.19+20101101-1
> Severity: serious
>
> Balance tree action of btrfs command should be limited to only root
> user, because it may cause data corrupt and usually result in an
> uninterruptible process which is causing a heavy I/O load (the process
> may keep runing for a long time because the action is not a easy deal).
>
> Run the following command as a non-root user will also start the balance
> tree action ( / is btrfs here, with ext4 /boot):
> $ btrfs filesystem balance /
>
> I think this problem will cause serious issues if somebody uses it in
> a production system (though it is really not recommended), so I give it
> an RC severity. If you think it should be changed, feel free to do it.
>
> What's more, I'm not sure whether this should be a bug in the Linux kernel,
> because such action is actually performed by using system calls. If I
> try to make a snapshot in a directory by a user who does not have the
> access, it will generate an error like this:
> $ pwd
> /home
> $ whoami
> aron
> $ btrfs subvolume snapshot . backhome
> Create a snapshot of '.' in './backhome'
> ERROR: cannot snapshot '.'
>

CCing debian-devel.


-- 
Regards,
Aron Xu