Fwd: Re: makedumpfile security key enhancement using SIAL

[Atsushi Kumagai]

Hello Aravinda,

On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:56:30 +0530
Aravinda Prasad <aravinda at linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday 21 March 2012 12:13 PM, Atsushi Kumagai wrote:
> > Hello Aravinda,
> >
> > I have two questions, could you answer me ?
> >
> > First, what problems do you have about the current format of makedumpfile.conf ?
> 
> Even though makedumpfile.conf is capable of filtering out data from the
> vmocore, it is not possible to specify and erase complex
> data-structures. For example it is not possible to traverse a nested
> list or a tree and then erase a particular node based on some
> conditions. Extending makedumpfile.conf to support these would require
> implementing a lot of language constructs. But we can reuse SIAL
> instead of extending makedumpfile.conf.
> 
> > Second, what benefits do you expect from using SIAL ? I can't imagine
> > specific benefits with using SIAL now.
> 
> SIAL can be used as a language construct to specify rules/commands to
> erase data in the image file. The makedumpfile would interpret the
> rules/commands provided by SIAL macros with the help of SIAL library
> and would suitably erase the required data in the dump file. As SIAL
> provides a lot of language constructs like conditional statements,
> logical and arithmetic operators, nested loops, functions etc, it would
> be possible to traverse nested lists and trees and conditionally erase
> data in the dump file, enabling users to literally erase any data in
> the dump file.

Thank you for your explanation.
It seems good to specify rules with SIAL.

If makedumpfile uses SIAL library, I will discard the current format of 
makedumpfile.conf to reduce the size of source code.
What do you think about it ?


Thanks
Atsushi Kumagai