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Date:      Thu, 15 Aug 1996 07:29:21 +1000
From:      Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
To:        jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, ulf@lamb.net
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, jkh@time.cdrom.com
Subject:   Re: Nightmare.
Message-ID:  <199608142129.HAA04653@godzilla.zeta.org.au>

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>> I would go more into the direction of checking if the dump device is a
>> mounted file system. Easy check. 

>I tend to agree, but wonder if it would not make more sense to tackle this
>from a different angle.

>Consider all the programs that could clobber a mounted file system.  Would
>it make more sense if we somehow protected a mounted disk device from
>being clobbered?

It is already protected.  Even root can't even open a mounted disk device.

However, mounted disk devices can easiliy be clobbered using an alias.
There are about 2^(1+5+3) = 512 possible aliases (raw/buffered, 2^5
slices, 2^3 partitions).  This is useful for things like installing
new bootblocks on the root partition without having to reboot with a
different root partition.  Don't fix it.  Root knows all about this
problem, and never makes mistakes :-).

Bruce



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