DOS Partition access under VP/ix

[Jonathan Bayer]

In article <1512 at viscous.sco.COM> uunet!sco!rosso (Ross Oliver) writes:
>In article <5980007 at hplsla.HP.COM> jeffh at hplsla.HP.COM (Jeff Harrell) writes:
>>>Does anyone know how to access the first disk partition (MSDOS drive C:)
>>>under xenix as vpix drive C:? Is it possible to "boot" vpix from
>>>this partition?
>>
>>I don't think VP/ix 1.1 will do it. I tried and got zip!
>>Who knows, when VP/ix actually works we may by able to
>>do quite a few usefull things with it...
>>
>>Jeff (Spectra Software) Harrell
>
>Add the following line to your vpix.cnf file:
>
>	D:	/dev/hd00
>
>You must grant read and write permission on /dev/hd00 for all users
	^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not so.  You have to grant 644 permissions.  This will allow all users to
READ, but not WRITE.  This greatly reduces the security risk mentioned below:

>who will be using it.  This poses a considerable security risk, since
>/dev/hd00 addresses your ENTIRE hard disk (including fdisk and badtrack
>tables, all filesystems, etc.)  This is necessary because MS-DOS requires
>access to the fdisk table.  Also, VP/ix opens the device for exclusive
>use, so only one user can use it at a time.  And since VP/ix opens all
>devices for read/write, it is impossible to set up your DOS hard disk

	VPIX may try to open for read/write, but it is perfectly happy
opening it for read-only.  Look at the manual on page 3-12, in section
3.6.2, where it states that "Several VP/ix users can access the same
partition simultaneously, but on a read-only basis".  It goes on to state 
that you cannot write to a hard disk partition under VP/ix, but that is
wrong (I just checked it on my system).

	I have checked all of the above on this system, running Xenix 2.3.1,
VP/ix version 1.01.

>
>Ross Oliver
>Software Support Engineer
>The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.

Normally I don't do this, but mild FLAME ON:

	ROSS, YOU SHOULD CHECK YOUR FACTS BEFORE YOU MAKE THESE STATEMENTS.
IT GIVES A BAD IMPRESSION WHEN END-USERS AND THE MANUAL SAY THAT YOU
ARE WRONG.

FLAME OFF.


JB
-- 
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