SUMMARY II: OW3 & SunOS 4.1.3

From: Wyllys Ingersoll (reagan!axl!wyllys@uu2.psi.com)
Date: Thu Sep 03 1992 - 16:49:38 CDT


Once again...

I recently summarized a problem I had running Openwin and X11R5 under
SunOS 4.1.3, The problem was that the permissions on devices such
as the keyboard, mouse, and framebuffer were mode 600 and owned by root
which prevented anyone from using a window server. The Sun answerline
solution was to change the permissions on these devices to 0666, which
is somewhat unsecure.

As it turns out, the reason I had the problem under 4.1.3 and not 4.1.1
is that while I was running 4.1.1 I had the entries in /etc/fbtab
uncommented which made these devices secure. When I upgraded to
4.1.3 the /etc/fbtab was changed back to unsecure mode but the
device permissions remained 0600 and owned by root.

SUMMARY: To run openwin and X11R5 and still have secure input devices,
         uncomment the lines in /etc/fbtab AFTER you do the upgrade
         to 4.1.3.

It would have been nice if Sun could have checked for this in the upgrade
procedure. Why do they allow unsecure devices in the first place (no reply
necessary) ???

Wyllys Ingersoll
E-Systems, Melpar Div.
wyllys@e-sys.com

Thanks to:
boes@corona.AuE.com
danq@lemond.Colorado.EDU
per@erix.ericsson.se
pbg@cs.brown.edu
sukes@eng.umd.edu

(and anyone else who replies after this is sent...)



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