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From: lidl@eng.umd.edu (Kurt J. Lidl)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: Does Ultrix 4.0 finally have a secure /dev/*mem ?
Message-ID: <1990Aug1.123933.2405@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 1 Aug 90 12:39:33 GMT
References: <1990Jul31.154912.22096@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <438@e2big.mko.dec.com>
Sender: news@eng.umd.edu (The News System)
Organization: College Of Engineering, Univ. of MD, College Park
Lines: 35

In article <438@e2big.mko.dec.com> francus@e2big.mko.dec.com (Yoseff Francus) writes:
>In article <1990Jul31.154912.22096@watcgl.waterloo.edu> idallen@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Ian! D. Allen [CGL]) writes:
>>Is memory still world-readable under Ultrix 4.0?
>>-- 
>>-IAN! (Ian! D. Allen) idallen@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca idallen@watcgl.waterloo.edu
>> [129.97.128.64]  Computer Graphics Lab/University of Waterloo/Ontario/Canada
>
>No it is not. /dev/mem now has a 640 protection with ownership
>of roots and group mem. mem is a new group and has groupid 6.
>
>francus@metsny.mko.dec.com

Yes, and therein lies part of the problem.  EVERY other BSD-derived
system that I have worked on has group kmem as gid 2.  In fact, this
is one of the "standard" group/gid pairs (kmem/2) that the BSD folks
request that everyone have around in the 4.3 (or was it the Tahoe?)
release docs.  There are a few other groups in there that I wish were
standard too...

To the best of my knowledge, BSD had the idea for a group kmem first,
and as such could make reasonable requests for it.  If DEC is going to
bother to implement it, why not make it a little closer to the true
intent?

This implies to me just one more gratuitious change to a supposedly
BSD type system.  Why?  Does DEC enjoy making my life harder?  I'm
begining to think so...

(By the way, the gid of 6 is news on my system -- I thought it was
really bloodly funny to find my kernel, ps and other programs
setuid to news when I put our "standard" /etc/group file on our
first Ultrix 4.0 machine... )
--
/* Kurt J. Lidl (lidl@eng.umd.edu) | Unix is the answer, but only if you */
/* UUCP: uunet!eng.umd.edu!lidl    | phrase the question very carefully. */