Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: questions about ISC 386/ix
Keywords: NFS & floppies, NFS & root, /lib/idcpp
Message-ID: <1990Jan6.114222.2572@virtech.uucp>
Date: 6 Jan 90 11:42:22 GMT
References: <42@guug.UUCP>
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc.
Lines: 34

In article <42@guug.UUCP>, ott@guug.UUCP (Joachim Ott) writes:
> 
> I have 3 little questions about ISC 386/ix:
> 
> 1) I'm root on host alpha and enter the following commands:

NFS, as part of it's basic design, does not support the use of 
device files accross a mounted file system.  I think this is probably
due to the fact that NFS is OS independent and therefore other OSs 
may not understand what a device file is (and associated unix type ioctls).

> 2) Still root, I enter:

Because of security, root's user id is remapped to a -2.  This is controlled
by the nobody variable in the kernel.  I have patched our kernel so that
nobody is set to a 0 as opposed to a -2.  This gives you the result you 
expect.

> 3) What are /lib/idcpp and /lib/idcomp good for ? They differ from
> cpp and comp in 2 bytes length ('id' in the name in comment section).

These are special versions of the compiler and c-preprocessor that are
used to rebuild the kernel.  They are provided so that you can re-compile
the kernel even if you do not have a development system.  The slight 
difference in size is due to some changes that make it hard (if not
impossible) to use them as a real compiler if you did not buy the
development system.


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| Conor P. Cahill     uunet!virtech!cpcahil      	703-430-9247	!
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