Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!news
From: szabo_p@maths.su.oz.au (Paul Szabo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Problems with email (also /etc/passwd, /etc/group)
Message-ID: <1990Jul16.053929.1363@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU>
Date: 16 Jul 90 05:39:29 GMT
References: <1664@tuvie> <547@dhump.lakesys.COM> <9007121504.AA24057@pan.ssec.honeywell.com> <1990Jul12.135506.3281@alphalpha.com>
Reply-To: szabo_p@maths.su.oz.au (Paul Szabo)
Organization: Dept of Applied Mathematics, University of Sydney
Lines: 42

In article <1664@tuvie>, mike@tuvie (Inst.f.Techn.Informatik) writes:
> Our mail works OK as long as the registry is available [...]
> [...] cannot acquire the gid of mail [...]

In article <547@dhump.lakesys.com>, johnr@dhump.lakesys.com writes:
> [...] can not find a group of mail, either from the registry,
> or in the /etc/group file. [...] 
> If no action is taken to create an /etc/group file, the system will
> have an empty file. [...] 
> [...] recommended that ALL nodes run llbd [...]

In article <9007121504.AA24057@pan.ssec.honeywell.com>,
thompson@pan.ssec.honeywell.com writes:
> The 'empty' file is not really empty.  It's a file of type group, and
> the type manager for that filetype knows to contact the registry
> server for the information.
> Running llbd merely allows NCS servers to register themselves with
> the global location broker (glbd).  It has nothing to do with clients
> trying to _get_ services.

The files /etc/passwd, /etc/group, /etc/org are typed objects, of types passwd,
group and org respectively (which in fact is the same type manager
/sys/mgrs/passwd).

I am not really sure how these type managers work. But I suspect your problems
are related to ACLs on the `node_data/systmp directory.

Whenever one of the /etc/passwd-like files are accessed, the network registry is
consulted for the information, which is then stored in `node_data/systmp/.cache.
When the information is complete, the .cache file is renamed .passwd (or .group
etc), and this then appears as the contents of /etc/passwd. What this means is
that the ACLs on `node_data/systmp must make it possible for anybody to create a
file, write into it, rename it, and remove files already there. If there are
any problems in this then all sorts of undesirable things may happen.

Probably you will need something like
/com/edacl -dir -p root prwx -g wheel rwxk -w rwxk /sys/node_data?*/systmp
/com/edacl      -p root prwx -g wheel rwx  -w rwx  /sys/node_data?*/systmp/?*
/com/edacl -id  -p root ik   -g wheel pk   -w k    /sys/node_data?*/systmp
/com/edacl -if  -p root irwx -g wheel prwx -w rwx  /sys/node_data?*/systmp

Paul Szabo    szabo_p@maths.su.oz.au