Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!sumax!polari!rwing!happym!irv From: irv@happym.wa.com (Irving Wolfe) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: SCO UNIX 3.2 Failure: df Command Keywords: help! Message-ID: <135@happym.wa.com> Date: 8 Aug 90 04:31:10 GMT Distribution: na Organization: Happy Man Corp., Seattle Lines: 70 When I type "df" on my Motorola system, I get: /u/spool/news(/dev/dsk/m320_1s2): 22142 blocks 10694 i-nodes /u (/dev/dsk/m320_1s1): 23572 blocks 11897 i-nodes /usr/spool/uucp(/dev/dsk/m320_1s0): 22034 blocks 5975 i-nodes /usr (/dev/dsk/m320_0s1): 13384 blocks 7191 i-nodes / (/dev/dsk/m320_0s0): 3132 blocks 2067 i-nodes When I type "df" on my SCO system, I get: df: no authorization to query disk space. I'm the system administrator, and have given myself every privilege, both kernel and subsystem, that the obnoxious sysadmsh menu system will acknowledge the existence of (with F3). root has all the same privileges, and even with his total filesystem access and no need for setuid, he gets the same error message. 1. Has anyone else experienced this? 2. I can't find anything in the df man page or the security section of the system administrator's guide that would let me solve this myself. 3. I know that SCO, despite the rotten product and rotten support, has as least two top-quality technical employees, at least one of whom may read this newsgroup. (You know who you are, and I appreciate your past help! I'm only keeping your names quiet to protect your jobs, since my impression of SCO's management is that they'd fire you for helping someone without a service contract, even though the product simply doesn't work configured as sold.) If you know the answer, I'd appreciate your help once more, whether it's by open posting or by private email. 4. I'm glad I bought a 630MB disk for this system, since I can't see when I'm getting too full. 5. In the good old days -- before Intel, Microsoft, and SCO, just a few years ago -- having UNIX meant being in control of your system, being able to make it do anything you wanted it to, no matter how clever your demands. Now it seems that the roles are reversed. The system is boss due to the really awful security features that can't be fully disabled. (They aren't effective anyway, in the current release; only the bad parts were programmed, so there's no payback in safety. Besides, the biggest security risk to a 386 system is someone carrying it off in his car.) This power-trip role reversal might be a fine game in bed with your lover, but it's a rotten feature in an operating system, especially one whose main virtue was giving the utmost in power and convenience to the programmer. So -- has any source code licensee or brilliant hacker out there written a program that forces the /tcb files into conformity with an old-style (no shadow) /etc/passwd file? Would he be willing to share it with the world, or with me? I'd certainly be willing to pay to have this corruption of Unix brought under my control, but perhaps you'd be willing to be a hero to thousands of us out here, instead, and release it to a sources newsgroup? 6. One side issue, for any business-oriented readers: I know my way around computers, but I'm too busy running the business to manage the system and write more than an occasional program. So I have a full time, very organized and competent man running things and doing most of our internal programming. Neither of us is a Unix guru. Especially _this_ Unix. But between what I pay him, and fringes and bonus, and what the time I personally put into this field is worth, that's quite a bit of money, every year. We could each save _at least_ 30% of the time we spend on this system, maybe more, if it would just be an old-fashioned Unix system that blindly obeyed us. So the current generation of sick twists in operating systems is costing us many times its actual price -- every year -- in unnecessary professional time. Why? Is there even one little thing we've gained from this? -- Irving Wolfe Happy Man Corp. irv@happym.wa.com 206/463-9399 ext.101 4410 SW Point Robinson Road, Vashon Island, WA 98070-7399 SOLID VALUE, the investment letter for Benj. Graham's intelligent investors Information free (sample $10 check or credit card): email patty@happym.wa.com