HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lga@sandman.stanford.edu(Laurent Amon)
Subject: Re: A non-root user running UserManager?
Reply-To: amon@cs.stanford.edu
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 19:40:16 GMT

In article <BryC9r.Ksr@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson)  
writes:
>  gungner@cs.ucla.edu (David Gungner) writes:
>  
>  >Does anybody know of a way to reconfigure UserManager so that a few
>  >non-root users (but they are in the group "wheel") can add new users?
>  >I want to grant a few maintenance people the ability to add new users
>  >without giving out the root password.
>  
>  Couple ways to do it:
>  Theoretically, if you make UserManager mode 4750, and make its group
>  'wheel', then anyone in wheel can run it and it should think that
>  you are root (it's setuid).  I haven't tried this, though.  It's
>  possible that this won't work, though (as a security precaution
>  inside UserManager).

UserManager is already set-uid root. It couldn't function if it were not.
So it is not possible, I think, to make it functional for the whole wheel
group. It would in fact enable anybody in the wheel group to go root by 
modifying the root account (removing the password, for instance) or
creating a user entry with 0:1 as its user and group number, effectively
creating another root entry. This is definitely not secure.

> Another way to do it would be to whip up a little perl script that
> takes userid, name, uid, password in from the user and then does a
> call to nu -A that creates users from the command line.  The perl
> script would have to be setuid.  That ought to work, too.
> (I say do a Perl script because it's more secure than a shell
> script - or put a C wrapper around a shell script and that would be
> OK too)
> 

Use a Perl script. A shell SUID script is not secure. A wrapper, if 
correctly done should be OK, but Perl is perfect for that kind of things.
What you want is a script that does the above, but with the following
restrictions:
- Do not allow modification of an existing account.
- Do not take the uid from the command line, but assign one (i.e. not
0 or any duplicate uid).
- Do not take a gid, but a list of groups you want the new user to belong to.
Once again, test and forbid all ``dangerous'' accounts, like wheel, staff,
daemon, sys, bin, uucp, kmem, news, tty, operator, ingres.
- Put any other restrictions you like so as not to rule over an anarchic 
system.

Like that it should work. However, if you do anything less than that, you 
might as well give the root passwd to the wheel people. It's less hassle. 

Lga.
---
                                       |"I don't know what it's called, but
Laurent Amon                           | we're doing one about going to see 
       e-mail: amon@cs.stanford.edu    | a wizard. Something about following
           lga@sandman.stanford.edu    | a yellow sick toad. (Moving Pictures)
From: bcs@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
Subject: Installation: NetInfo domains missing?
Date: 29 Jul 92 13:49:01 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Hi all,

I'm in the process of setting up a small group of newly-aquired Turbo slabs,
and I think I may be in trouble.  I'm not entirely sure - several years of 
HP-UX and SunOS experience doesn't come to the rescue much.

I've elected my NetInfo/configuration server, and run through the local 
network setup with NetManager.  It seems to work: I can ping, telnet and ftp.
What hasn't happened that I gather should have, is that no NetInfo domain was
created for the local host (kauri) (native tree - I'm in New Zealand).  When
I select "Open" from "Domain" in NetInfoManager, the root domain has no cute
right-pointing arrowhead, and no offspring are visible.

"Okay," I thought, "this is weird, but I'll add one of the other hosts and see
what happens!".  Well, no domain was created for that either.

Yes, I've rebooted - after each addition no less.

Q: Am I right in thinking that there is a problem?

Q: Where do I go from here?  Is it safe to knock out the contents of 
   /etc/netinfo completely and start again?  Can I create the subdomains
   manually in NetInfoMunger?

Thanx for any advice you can offer, but by email puh-leez.

+-Brent Summers, U of Waikato, NZ----------------------------------------+
|    "Laugh and the world ignores you.  Crying doesn't help either."     |
|      All opinions expressed are, of course, solely my own errors.      |
+------------------------------------------------------bcs@waikato.ac.nz-+
From: root@ucdacm.denver.colorado.edu (SysAdmin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
Subject: Printer won't print.
Keywords: printer
Date: 22 Jul 92 22:39:20 GMT

I have just connected an Epson LQ-870 to our NeXTstation using a Mac modem  
cable to serial port A.  The printer is equipped with a serial card set up  
to do software flow control and 9600 bps.  The printer works fine when  
doing a loopback test.  We are using /dev/ttya as the printer port.  When  
we attempt to print a test page from PrintManager, nothing happens.  I  
also cannot get anything to print by cat'ing directly to /dev/ttya.  A  
status report from lpc returns a message that the printer is not  
responding.  I don't know whether it is related but, I should also mention  
that when we try to print to other printers on the network (non netinfo)  
we get a status of "waiting for queue to be enabled on {machine_name}.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I can supply more info if you tell  
me what is needed.

Thanks.

Matthew E. Walworth
mwalwort@ucdacm.denver.colorado.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: gungner@cs.ucla.edu (David Gungner)
Subject: A non-root user running UserManager?
Originator: gungner@maui.cs.ucla.edu
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 06:15:10 GMT

Does anybody know of a way to reconfigure UserManager so that a few
non-root users (but they are in the group "wheel") can add new users?
I want to grant a few maintenance people the ability to add new users
without giving out the root password.

Thanks for any suggestions,

David Gungner             
UCLA Machine Perception Lab

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin,comp.sys.next.misc
From: dahla@mksol.dseg.ti.com (alexander dahl)
Subject: DOS Drive is Slow!!!!!#%$@#&^#@$
Organization: Texas Instruments, Inc
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 19:51:50 GMT

Am I just dreaming or what.  But to get something off of the
net I must FTP to a PeeCee machine.  To get it to mine is
via Floppy Net.

I cannot imagine that it would be that BIG of a deal to    
pass out the "new, faster" DOS driver for the NeXT floppy.

Did I miss something along the way or did NeXT just decide
that everyone was greatfully enjoyed with a disk drive that
is slower than a Sinclair floppy?

Alex Dahl
dahla@mksol.dseg.ti.com       or       dahla@lobby.ti.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: Michael_Pizolato@afs.com (Michael Pizolato)
Subject: NNTP vs. NFS (was Re: Creating news feed w/ NewsGrazer)
Reply-To: Michael_Pizolato@afs.com
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:36:41 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.183814.10671@Trirex.COM> tswan@trirex.com (Todd Swan)  
writes:
> Well, there are two ways.  First, you could use NFS to share the relevent  
> directories with the other machines.  Or, second, (and better) run NNTP.   
> I just installed it here and it took about 1 hour.  You can get the source  
> from uunet (ftp.uu.net).

I have two questions about NNTP, but first let me describe our net.  We have one  
NeXT machine with a fax/modem that is responsible for calling for e-mail and  
news.  We have several NeXT machines (the first one included) that use  
NewsGrazer to read/post.  Our server is a Sun with a huge disk.  The modem NeXT  
does not have the capacity to store news, the Sun server does.  We share out the  
Sun directories via NFS as in the first method above, so from the perspective of  
the c-news software that runs on the modem NeXT, the news directories are local.   
All the other NeXTs, of course, also see the directories as local when running  
NewsGrazer.  Nobody ever logs in to the Sun except for administrative stuff.

Here are the questions:

        1. Generally (i.e. without specific reference to our network
           configuration), what is the advantage of NNTP over shared NFS
           directories.

        2. Would NNTP be better for our particular network, and why?

Please assume I know nothing about NNTP (which is very near the truth).  I  
posted this rather than e-mailing because a general discussion on news and NNTP  
will most likely benefit many people; there must be other networks out there  
with a configuration similar to ours.

Thanx,
Michael

--
Michael_Pizolato@afs.com
~18 kyu
Q16
NeXTMail appreciated
From: garyc@eecs.nwu.edu (Gary I. Chang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
Subject: Rebuilting the INTERNAL HD with 3.0
Date: 29 Jul 92 17:21:18 GMT
Organization: EECS Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, Il., USA


        Okay, so I thought I survived in the repeatedly blackouts during the
severe T-storms a couple of weeks ago. Not until recently I found out tons of
broken links and unreference i-nodes and files. e.g. I had to re-create manually
a vm dir under /private in order to have the swapfile built up during system
boot. The ThirdParty directory became a plain file that I lost *.pkg in it. 
And lots of system related files they all pointed to the empty nodes/blocks.
I got into panic mode for most file service operations. The system kept 
rebooting from the ROM monitor and retry after it failed to boot properly. I
finally got to a stable stage until I ran fsck in single user mode and answer
'Y' to all repairs. (including removing many broken system files)

        Anyway, I believe the HD is damanged, obviously a 20 MEGS short of
space.( it's not in the swapfile at all, it's because those broken files did
not release their blocks after unlinked by fsck. The missing swapfile itself used to take 16 Megs) I am now playing with fire on my NeXT until NS 3.0 is released. Hopefully, I've backed up most of my valuable files.

	Could someone tell me if I can rebuilt (including low-level format)
my "INTERNAL" 426 Mgs HD from the CD-ROM, such that I get a complete 
NS 3.0 from inside out. 


Gary
From: zeke@znext (james dehnert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Is cron going to get better?
Date: 22 Jul 92 13:29:09 GMT
Organization: pnet

In article <CKD.92Jul20100637@loiosh.eff.org> ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)  
writes:
- 
- This is *not* a particularly good idea if you have any security worries
- (like, say, you're hooked up to the Internet, in a public lab, or the
- like) and it's probably not that much tougher to port the Vixie cron.
- --

  Port Nothing!  All youy have to do is compiele it.  I have been running Vixie  
Cron for about 6 months with no problems.  It gives you all the functionality  
of Suns cron as far as I can tell, and runs without a hitch on the NeXT.

-- 
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
=   Eschew Obfuscation          Next Mail Welcome   =
+   James "Zeke" Dehnert  ..ucsd!crash!znext!zeke   +
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: eps@futon.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Subject: Re: Keep me?
Reply-To: eps@cs.sfsu.edu
Organization: San Francisco State University
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 06:17:23 GMT

In article <1992Jul13.210814.15251@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
	falk@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Geoffrey Falk) writes:
>                                                         The workspace checks
>whether or not "me" has a password when you boot the machine, so the account
>has to be there.

Actually, the check's in loginwindow, and "me" is the default
only if DefaultUser isn't set.  BTW, that's how Guided Tour
gets NextTour to log in automagically.

					-=EPS=-
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: sanguish@digifix.com (Scott Anguish)
Subject: Re: disappearing home icons, -- Answer
Reply-To: sanguish@digifix.com
Organization: Digital Fix Development
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 00:18:22 GMT

Garance A. Drosehn writes
> skrbec@tophat4.rtsg.mot.com (Brad Skrbec) writes:
> > I've had this peculiar problem at home, and haven't been able to
> > figure it out.  For one account on my NeXT, when I move the browser
> > to other people's home directories, I get a folder icon, rather
> I ran into this too.  I even sent a bug report to NeXT about it giving, in  
> great detail, the exact events which I thought had caused this behavior to  
> start for my userid.

	I don't get my own Home directory (or anyone elses) when I am working  
on the machine that mounts the directories via NFS from the NeXT server.

	The connection between "large file system" and "show neighbours  
directory icon" is lost on me.

-- 
- Scott Anguish -
sanguish@digifix.com (NextMail)

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: m@crito.Stanford.EDU (M Carling)
Subject: Re: Rebuilting the INTERNAL HD with 3.0
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 04:11:46 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.204551.22591@eecs.nwu.edu> garyc@eecs.nwu.edu (Gary  
I. Chang) writes:
> 	I don't get it! What's the difference between booting from a  
floppy
> and a CD-ROM? There's no point that you can NOT perform low-level format  
when
> boot from a CD-ROM  other than from a Floppy...... To me , the CD-ROM is  
more
> of a floppy drive reading those write-protected FDs with huge capacity.
> Besides, what's the low-level format command and proper device name for  
the 
> internal HD?

There is no provision to boot directly from the CD-ROM except to run  
BuildDisk as far as I am aware. In other words, you can't boot from the  
CD-ROM, mount your hard drive and poke around the file system. You can do  
this after booting from a floppy.

If I remember correctly the UNIX command init is the one to use for  
low-level formatting. If not, I trust that a UNIX wizard will correct me.  
Most likely, your internal disk is /dev/sd0a, but make sure. You can see  
during boot what logical device name it gets assigned.

M Carling
Director, Bay Area NeXT Group
--
Bill Clinton lied to his wife. How can his country trust him?
George Bush lied to his country. How can his wife trust him?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: robinc@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert Delucca)
Subject: UUCICO ERROR
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 10:43:04 GMT

/usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r1 -x9 -s<name>
I get an assert message to the effect that I have a dead LCK, or that uucp
cannot create a LCK file, or that it cannot access a LCK file. Now, I believe 
I deleted a LCK file some weeks ago to free the line, but I don't understand
why I have this error now. Isn't the LCK file created by uucp? Please explain!
I'm totally new to UUCP (and it seems I will be for some months at this rate - :-(

Thanks

Robert de Lucca
delucca@bouhours.fre.jhu.edu
robinc@hcf.jhunix.jhu.edu
From: maurices@spock.dis.cccd.edu (Maurice Shihadi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
Subject: Re: X windows on the NeXT
Keywords: Xwindows
Date: 31 Jul 92 17:40:04 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Coast Community College District, Costa Mesa, CA

In article <1992Jul24.205456.15006@u.washington.edu> jcl@yonext.apl.washington.edu writes:
>I'm considering the purchase of an Xwindow display server for my 040 cube.
>There are at least three companies that carry such a product as follows:
>
>White Pine eXodus : $239
>Co-Xist           : $249
>Cub' X-Window     : $590
>
>I'd appreciate any advice on which of these to purchase.  I'm also curious
>to know why the Cub' version is considerably more costly.  Thanks for any
>help!
>
>				Jim Luby

I've got a question regarding this too.  I've got my old Mac SE/30 sitting
around and I want connect it to my NeXTstation via ethernet.  I wish to 
output an additional screen display to the NeXT monitor and be able to 
control apps from the NeXT--for example, using the NeXT mouse to open
Finale (music notation app) in the SE/30 and have the pallate of note 
features displayed on the small SE/30 screen while having the open file
displayed on the NeXT monitor--then save the file on a DOS formatted disc,
take it to a DOS machine and output it to a HP laserjet III.  Anyway, the way 
I understand it I need to purchase a Mac screen emulation package only 
available on X-Windows, then I need to get an X-Windows emulation package
all on top of NeXTstep.  Even so I still won't get any additional realestate
and the Mac screen emulation won't be any bigger than it was originally.  

Another alternative would be to purchase a Mac emulation package ($800 
approx.) that runs on NeXTstep.  There are four companies that I know 
of that do this.  However, one now denies the emulation exists, another 
is waiting for financing and the other two are shipping their packages
for Sun and are going to port to HP before they get to NeXT.  

At any rate emulating the screen of an SE/30 would seem to be the most
cost effective way to get greater use out of existing equipment plus the
added realestate.  Has anyone else tried to do this?  Does anyone know
of other alternatives with NeXTstep 3.0 comming up?  Please feel free
to e-mail me.  Thanks

maurices
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: jeffo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Subject: su shows password on screen and doesn't ever stop
Reply-To: jeffo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 00:26:48 GMT

When a user in group wheel types 'su', the program actually shows the
password they type and if it is not correct doesn't print "Sorry." and
stop, it just hangs.  No shell, ^C won't get out of it, and the whole
shell window must be closed to stop it.  Is there a way to fix this?

Also, what should /bin/su be linked to if:

* only users in group wheel should su to anyone,

* even if those users can't get the root password right, they
  shouldn't be allowed to switch to root,

* if they don't get it right su prints "Sorry." as it is supposed to

* and finally what should the other su.{wheel,nowheel} (whichever one
  should NOT be 'su' or linked to 'su') do or be?  Should it just be
  removed from the system or chmod'ed so nobody can actually do anything
  with it?

Thanks for all your help.
-- 
-- Jeff (jeffo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu)
-- No NeXTmail please
From: dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
Subject: Re:  Turning off SCSI devices and Rel 2.1
Distribution: world
Date: 27 Jul 92 09:34:57 PST
Organization: Not an Organization

In article <nqab7h8@zuni.esd.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
>In <1992Jul27.025718.22038@umbc3.umbc.edu> brian@umbc4.umbc.edu (Brian Cuthie) writes:
>| In article <4455@rosie.NeXT.COM> amm@NeXT.COM (Alan M. Marcum) writes:
>| >Bob Peirce #305 writes
>| >> I have an HSD scanner at the end of my SCSI chain.  Since I don't
>| >> ...
>| >The SCSI bus is actually an active bus.  To function correctly,
>| >all devices on the bus should be powered on, the cables should
>| >....
>| This is bunk.  The SCSI bus is driven by open-collector devices.  A
>| properly behaved SCSI peripheral may be left in the powered down state without
>| any ill effects.
>
>Ah, thus speaks someone who hasn't dealt with the real world.  Many
>(most?) SCSI devices will pull all the bus lines into the active state
>when powered off.  In fact SCSI 2 only has an implementors note (NOT a

    The problem is that nearly all IC's have protection diodes on their I/O
    lines.  That is, a diode to VDD as part of their internal circuitry.
    When the unit is powered down VDD (the power bus) goes to 0V thus
    forward biasing the input protection diodes and forcing the bus line to
    0-0.7V.  ANY INPUT, INPUT-OUTPUT, OR TRI-STATE LINE HAS THIS.  Many
    output-only pins also exhibit similar behavior depending on the
    process.

    Simply put, you have to use special IC's that do not have the
    aformentioned protection diodes or use the SCSI power pin to keep part
    of your board powered up to keep the input protection diodes out of the
    way.

    And before anyone asks why it is necessary to have input protection
    diodes... without them you blow up the IC when you touch it.  Even
    *with* them it's relatively easy to blow up IC's through static
    discharge.

					    -Matt

>--
>Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
>because whoever is silent dissents.		 |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
>    Maria Isabel Barreno			 |   olson@sgi.com

--

    Matthew Dillon	    dillon@Overload.Berkeley.CA.US
    891 Regal Rd.	    uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon
    Berkeley, Ca. 94708     ham: KC6LVW (no mail drop)
    USA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
Subject: Re: NeXT to VAX,IBM Mainframe...
From: jdeck@wings.wcc.wesleyan.edu (Joseph G. Deck)
Date: 21 Jul 92 13:38:43 EDT

To connect to a VAX/VMS use multinet TCP/IP and/or multinet NFS.  Send
mail to sales@tgv.com for pricing and details.  I have used two other 
companies versions of TCP/IP and nothing I have seen for a Vax comes close  
to TGV for price, performance, or service.

BTY:  I have no connections with TGV other than being a satisfied  
customer.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: osborn@athena.ecs.csus.edu (Chris Osborn)
Subject: Losing mail with sendmail and/or rmail
Organization: California State University, Sacramento
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 21:05:18 GMT

Ok, I'm still having problems with UUCP. Quite often, any incoming
UUCP mail gets lost by the system.

I think I've tracked down the problem to /usr/lib/sendmail. However,
it may have something to do with rmail.

Original problem:
  Mail would arrive at machine, only to get lost, with a return
  message going back to agent on the sending machine with a subject of
  "uuxqt cmd (rmail fozztexx) status (signal 0, exit 208)"

What I did next:
  I located a newer version of rmail(4.15 5/31/90) and hacked it to
  send the appropriate flags to sendmail (discovered with strings
  /bin/rmail)

  Mail was still getting lost, only now, I wasn't getting those
  messages back from uuxqt indicating anything went wrong.

So then:
  I hacked up the rmail to log every little detail to a file, and to
  fork into sendmail, so that I could even log sendmail's return code.
  Well, sendmail was getting exec'd ok, and was even returning a
  status code of 0. Still losing mail though.

So today I:
  changed /bin/rmail to be a link to /usr/lib/sendmail. Hey, I figured
  even if the header looked like crap, at least I'd get the body.

  So I sent off a message to barf!nvcc!barf!nvcc!barf!nvcc!fozztexx
  (barf is the name of the machine I call, nvcc is my machine, and
  fozztexx is my account), to test out UUCP, once again. 

  Well, after the message came back to nvcc the second time, it
  disappeared without a trace. No errors or anything.

Also:
  barf and nvcc are NeXTs running 2.1 and configured as a mail server
  (ie.  sendmail.cf is a link to sendmail.mailhost.cf) and all the
  changes I made to nvcc I also made to barf (like changing the rmail,
  as well as making it a link).

So can anyone make this problem go away? Can I ftp a newer/better
version of sendmail that will make it stop doing this? Do I need to
change my sendmail.cf file to make it stop?

This only happens with UUCP. When any of the machines connected thru
the ethernet send mail, it always arrives succesfully. Of course, they
just transfer it to nvcc, so it goes from nvcc to nvcc.
Chris Osborn
Napa Valley College
osborn@athena.ecs.csus.edu
(Anyone in the Bay Area want to give my college a UUCP connect for free?)