SUMMARY "Secure vs Unsecure Terminals"

From: Jim Coker (jcoker@photsun1.csc.ti.com)
Date: Tue Nov 08 1994 - 07:52:22 CST


The original posting follows the summary, and thanks to :
tom@uni-paderborn.de
roland@netcom.com
danny@esaserv1.dseg.ti.com

(tom@uni-paderborn.de) actually had the best explanation so rather than rewrite it I just included it with a little added:

(1) The boot block of the boot disk is read and the system ( /vmunix )
    is loaded.
    The root (/) and the /usr partition aremounted
(2) The init daemon is started
(3) init runs rc.boot. rc.boot executes /etc/rc.single
(4) fsck is running. If you use SunOs4.1.3 there is a stable flag in every
    filesystem. So the system is only checked if this flag isn't set.
    If you use SunOS4.1.y, 0 < y < 3, then every filesystem is checked.
    If the file /fastboot exist, no filesystem is checked. fasthalt or
    fastboot creates this file.

If you are booting to singleuser mode. This is all. If you are going to
multiuser mode the next steps are executed. From single user mode just
CTRL-D out and the system will boot to multi-user mode.

(5) init invokes /etc/rc
(6) rc executes /etc/rc.local
(7) If /etc/rc.local is finished the control is given back to /etc/rc
(8) If /etc/rc finished the system is up

(roland@netcom.com) also pointed out that Secure= means the terminal is IN a
TRUSTED environment and will not prompt for a password, while Unsecure= means it is IN an UNTRUSTED environment and will prompt for a password.

Thanks to all,
Jim Coker

        Let me first explain what I mucked up and had to recover from. I am
> on a Sparc 10 with SunOS 4.1.3_U1.(If that really matters) I am using automounter
> with auto.direct and auto.master maps. Some things changed that I was mounting so
> I used the # symbol to comment out the first line of my auto.direct map. (MISTAKE!!)
> Later in the day I noticed I could not su to root, so I logged completely out and tried
> to login directly as root. Unfortunately, I could not log back in at all...Nobody, Nohow.
> After thinking long and hard about what I might have done I remembered the change to the map,
> which by the way was the only system type change I had done all day.
> To make a long story short I dug through some manuals and found out how to get in
> using boot -s, I got in fixed the map and everything is cool! I really have two questions:
>
> 1) What is the difference in the boot sequence between single and multi-user modes ?
> i.e. What files are read and what programs are started for each mode.
> 2) If I make the changes necessary to make my terminal secure, then do something similar
> like this again can I still get back into the system the same way ?
> i.e. boot -s (Even with a secured terminal, at least now it would want a password)



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