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Date:      Wed, 23 May 2001 18:04:34 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Doug Denault <doug@safeport.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: /dev/io: Operation not permitted
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.1010523175346.14934B-100000@fledge.watson.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0105231727170.6227-100000@pemaquid.safeport.com>

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Okay I will answer my own question here. I was messing around with
security levels which I _HAD_ set to 1. From man 8 init:

   1   Secure mode - the system immutable and system append-only flags may
       not be turned off; disks for mounted filesystems, /dev/mem, and
       /dev/kmem may not be opened for writing; kernel modules (see
       kld(4)) may not be loaded or unloaded.

You can add /dev/io to the list.

On Wed, 23 May 2001 doug@safeport.com wrote:

> I have a 4.3 system where root can not write to /dev/io. I assume I have screwed
> something up but  I am told the permissions:
> 
> crw-------  1 root  wheel    2,  14 May  9 19:56 /dev/io
> 
> are okay and indeed matches my other systems. The man page io(4) would suggest
> this is hard to do:
> 
>    DESCRIPTION
>      The special file /dev/io is a controlled security hole that allows a pro-
>      cess to gain I/O privileges (which are normally reserved for kernel-
>      internal code).  Any process that holds a file descriptor on /dev/io open
>      will get its IOPL bits in the flag register set, thus allowing it to per-
>      form direct I/O operations.  This can be useful in order to write user-
>      land programs that handle some hardware directly.
> 
>      The entire access control is handled by the file access permissions of
>      /dev/io, so care should be taken in granting rights for this device.
>      Note that even read/only access will grant the full I/O privileges.
> 
> However:
> 
> Last login: Tue May 22 18:21:34 2001 from pemaquid.boltsys
> Copyright (c) 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
>         The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
> FreeBSD 4.3-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sat Apr 21 10:54:49 GMT 2001
> 
> Welcome to FreeBSD!
> 
> mneme:~> su
> Password:
> mneme:/home/doug# echo "poo I say" > /dev/io
> /dev/io: Operation not permitted.
> __________________________________________
> 
> The reason I care is XFree86 -configure fail with the same error. This system
> was installed from ftp.freebsd.org on 5/20
> 
> 
> _____
> Douglas Denault
> doug@safeport.com
> Voice: 301-469-8766
>   Fax: 301-469-0601
> 
> 
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