Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 16:25:17 +0000 (GMT) From: Jonathan Smith <jonsmith@fourier.physics.purdue.edu> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Removable media, user access Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.981228161437.17992A-100000@fourier.physics.purdue.edu>
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Background: Currently we are running from FreeBSD-current, a week old or so, rebuilt with custom modifications (mostly to initial setup to reflect changes we make by hand, but with some additions such as entombing). Some machines go to users (without root access) and some go to the 'lab' where multiple users (again without root access) use them. As with single user machines (such as macintoshes and often windows setups) and as seen in versions of Solaris/SunOS, the _users_ wish to _use_ the removable media, floppys, zips, CD's, LS-120s, etc. Issue: We've been using der automounter for this; however, der automounter is designed for NFS usage (and does wonderful at it) and it has features such as program file systems, pcfs filesystems, etc. that allow for direct mounting of file systems (without NFS usage); however, these do not handle rugged, frequent, normal (what you'd expect for normal people to do) usage. Example: Zip drive gets mounted to /PATH/zip. It is accessed from /zip (cd /zip automounts /dev/da2s4 on /PATH/zip.) with security added such that only the owner of /dev/console (and root) may access the drive (part of the program mount); however, if you access /zip without a drive in the zip drive (frequently done at boot up, and by idiots -- this is where IDIOT-PROOFING comes in, and acidents -- whoops, wrong direcotry) locks out /zip. Question: Do we have any reliable mechanism, be it modification/configuration of der automounter or something else, to give the users of X (and their telnet windows) complete access to the removable media, without giving it to others, which recognizes AND DOESN'T BREAK!!!! switching the removable media well? -jonsmith "If kisses could kill (gulp), that one would have flattened several small towns...." Vir Cotto, Babylon 5 "Tu was du willst." Die Unendliche Geschichte, von Michael Ende "Do as you wish." The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende The Microsoft Soloution, "newfs && make reinstall" Jon C. Smith (765)49-48628 PHYS 31h jonsmith@fourier.physics.purdue.edu 1396 Physics Building, West lafayette Purdue Univesity, Indiana 47906-1396 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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