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From: evans@ditsyda.oz (Bruce Evans)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Corrupting DOS partition
Message-ID: <2255@ditsyda.oz>
Date: 9 Oct 89 17:58:43 GMT
References: <5033@ogccse.ogc.edu>
Reply-To: evans@ditsyda.oz (Bruce Evans)
Organization: CSIRO DIT Sydney, Australia
Lines: 17

In article <5033@ogccse.ogc.edu> lyle@ogccse.UUCP (Lyle Cool) writes:
>	build bootblok kernel mm fs init fsck /dev/hd0   instead of
>...
>It raises this issue: should Minix allow a fumble-fingered programmer
>to corrupt another partition on the disk?

The system can easily protect against this if the file permissions are
set properly. I have all hard disk readable by everyone but writable
only by root and their owner (bin), and avoid working as root or bin.
Floppy disks are writable by all, so this particular problem is solved.

I still need to become root too much, mainly to run chown and move files
between users. Perhaps chown should be suid root on a single-user Minix
system. The 1.2 (?) version of mv had security holes which made it all-
powerful when suid root. Perhaps these should be put back. :-)
-- 
Bruce Evans		evans@ditsyda.oz.au