Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uwm.edu!ogicse!milton!sumax!nwnexus!wjones
From: wjones@nwnexus.WA.COM (Warren Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix
Subject: Re: Where does getty get its information?
Message-ID: <482@nwnexus.WA.COM>
Date: 2 Apr 91 16:11:51 GMT
References: <6@kb2ear.ampr.org>
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc.; Seattle, WA
Lines: 13

elr@kb2ear.ampr.org (Ed Ravin) writes:

>A look at the protections on the tty devices shows that they're set to
>rw-rw--w-, or owner and group read/write, but outsiders write only.  If
>I chmod the tty device to 666 then Kermit works fine, but after a user
>signs on and off again, (and getty is restarted), the protection goes
>back to -w- (write only) for outsiders.

We've run into the same problem here, and reported it to IBM software
defect support.  (Mention problem #5X776 if you talk to them.)
Our temporary fix has been to write a one line suid root program:
system( "chmod 666 /dev/tty1" ), and a shell wrapper around kermit
that calls this program.  Yes, I know its ugly.