Making a time structure associated with the directory structure

[Kaustubh Ghosh]

On Wed, 2004-08-25 at 14:44, Kaustubh Ghosh wrote:
>     I am trying to make a time structure,linked to the directory structure . 
I 
> am trying to explain.For each file or directory there will be a time 
> structure associated which will store all dates of modification of the files 
> sequentially and will be accessible only by the root user. It is aimed at 
> better security.Let us consider a person is to submit a report within a 
> particular date.He doesnot,but when faced with inquiry,he just changes the 
> system time to a previous date and saves his report made later, at that 
> date.But this will be impossible with the time structure.A cursory glance at 
> the dates of modification is enough to reveal that the system time has been 
> changed.Can anyone give me any ideas how this can be achieved?I don't like 
to 
> bias with mine.Any suggestion is welcome.The file system under consideration 
> is ext2fs.Thanks in advance for any consideration.
>                                                               Kaustubh Ghosh


Scot L. Harris <webid at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>You want something like a source code control system where you can check
>out and check in files?  I believe this tracks the date/time the file
>was checked in.  RCS would do that.  I am sure there are others out
>there that are newer than that.  I think subversion maybe one of the
>newer packages for this.
> 
>In most cases though you can not change the systems time without root
>access.  If they have root access then all bets are off regardless of
>what system you put in place.  As others already pointed out the user
>can use touch to change the timestamp to whatever they want.

>You could also just setup a separate system that the user must SC the
>file to.  If it is not on that system then it has not be delivered.  You
>keep the user from having shell access to that system so they can not
>change the time stamps.
>
>Sounds like more of process issue than anything else.  

Matthew Miller           mattdm at mattdm.org        <http://www.mattdm.org/> 
wrote:
>Or simply move all files from the incoming directory to an 'accepted'
>directory at the exact due date via cron. Then, anything found in the
>incoming directory is certainly from too late, no matter what its date.


Thanks for all the responses.But it wasn't exactly what I wanted.My fault at 
expressing myself, I admit.What I wanted is to enhance the ext2 file system 
with some modules which uses encryption to store time stamps of the access 
and modifications of files.The encrypted data is to be accessed by 
specialized passwords and the data can certainly not be deleted.A user who 
will be using the file system will be bound by the system to store time 
stamps,be he root or not.The data will be accessible only from root account 
through the specialized password given at install time or by many of the 
specialized secure password protocols(challenge handshake,etc etc).The main 
problem in other cases is that the users with laptops must have root access 
to make important changes on his own, but will be bound to format whatever 
things(laptops ,desktops) they like to use to this file system.The O/S is 
most likely to be some version of RedHat Linux.Can anyone please give me some 
suggestions?Any help is appreciated.Thanks in advance for any consideration.
                                                              - Kaustubh Ghosh