Re: ls/stat on OneDrive causes download of files

[Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin@cygwin.com>]

Hi Jeffrey,


apart from the attribute stuff...


On Mar  6 13:55, Jeffrey Altman via Cygwin wrote:
> The default ProcessPlaceholderCompaibilityMode is PHCM_EXPOSE_PLACEHOLDERS
> which makes the FILE_ATTRIBUTE flags and reparse tags visible. Microsoft
> maintains a database of processes for which PHCM_DISGUISE_PLACEHOLDER is set
> which hides that information. Its unclear to me that explicitly setting the
> placeholder compatibility mode is useful.

What I see as a problem here is this:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/ddi/ntifs/nf-ntifs-rtlsetprocessplaceholdercompatibilitymode

Quote:

  "Most Windows applications see exposed placeholders by default. For
   ^^^^
   compatibility reasons, Windows may decide that certain applications
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   see disguised placeholders by default."

But then again, in other news from Microsoft:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/cfapi/build-a-cloud-file-sync-engine#compatibility-with-applications-that-use-reparse-points

Quote:

  "[...] the cloud files API always hides its reparse points from all
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   applications except for sync engines and processes whose main image
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   resides under %systemroot%. Applications that understand reparse
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   points correctly can force the platform to expose cloud files API
   reparse points using RtlSetProcessPlaceholderCompatibilityMode or
   RtlSetThreadProcessPlaceholderCompatibilityMode.

Considering these two statements, it's totally unclear to a process, if
it just defaults to "exposed" or "disguised".

Fortunately we can ask Windows by calling the
RtlQueryProcessPlaceholderCompatibilityMode() function, right?

Lets have a look into the documentation at
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/ddi/ntifs/nf-ntifs-rtlqueryprocessplaceholdercompatibilitymode

Quote:

  "Return value

  This function returns the process's placeholder compatibily mode
  (PHCM_xxx), or a negative value on error (PCHM_ERROR_xxx). Contains
  one of the following values:

  Compatibility Mode           Value
  PHCM_APPLICATION_DEFAULT       0
  PHCM_DISGUISE_PLACEHOLDER      1
  PHCM_EXPOSE_PLACEHOLDERS       2
  PHCM_MAX                       2
  PHCM_ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER  -1
  PHCM_ERROR_NO_TEB             -2"

So I called the function right at the start of the Cygwin DLL, and it
returns the value 0, i. e., PHCM_APPLICATION_DEFAULT.

At this point the process *still* has no idea if placeholders are
exposed or disguised.  What a great API! \o/

So, from the above, and if we really want to be sure that placeholders
will be exposed, I don't see any way around calling
RtlSetProcessPlaceholderCompatibilityMode(PHCM_EXPOSE_PLACEHOLDERS)
explicitely at DLL startup.

What do you think?


Thanks,
Corinna