This is NeXT-concerns in view mode; [Up]
Date: Sun 26-Jan-1989 16:16:26 From: Unknown Subject: NeXT concerns We have some NeXTs on campus -- we are looking at a few in-house, and the rest are being purhased for campus faculty. We have found that there are problems with integrating NeXTs intro our envrionment and I would like to hear from people at other universities how NeXTs are currently being distributed, what your plans are for the future, and if you've run into the same problems that we have. The NeXT is NeAT, no question about it. I believe that the technical term is ``slick''. It combines software and hardware into a single, bundled package that is not available elsewhere. I'd like to have one on my desk, but for the rest of campus... (I have sent the follwing comments to NeXT, but I think that putting them on the floor for discussion will help both us, the users, and NeXT) The NeXT is a very nice development platform, but there's a chicken-and-egg problem. We can't advise faculty to write applications on the NeXT until there are NeXTs for student use. Untill/unless NeXT meets some of the following concerns, there won't be NeXTs for student access. The university computing model requires that users be able to access and share data easily throughout the campus. When someone is forced to remove their data (optical drive) when they leave a NeXT, they are being forced to isolate their data. An optical floppy at home, left in a backpack or car, or anywhere that there isn't a NeXT is useless. Because the user's files are not being kept on a central server, as is done when people use our VAXstations, there is no way for someone to dial in and access their files. We can back up servers, but in the NeXT model the user is responsible for the integrity of their data. An optical drive-only NeXT isn't desirable in public workstation rooms -- those rooms where students can access workstations. The best workstation for public rooms is a workstation that boots off the network and uses file servers, perhaps keeping its swap space on a local hard disk. Come to think of it, an optical drive-only machine isn't very useful anywhere. In most faculty/research environments, you want speed (hard disk) and a machine that is stable, not schizophrenic -- we don't need one that changes it's personality everytime optical disks are swapped. A NeXT makes a poor file/mail/compute server because it cannot be used without a MegaPixel Display and it won't power up after a power loss. Our workstations almost never get turned off (they don't do much when they're off), so why must we pay extra for a keyboard power button (a simple on/off switch on the cube must be cheaper) that doesn't do what we need? Methinks there was too much ``personal computer'' thinking in the design. The need to share data also requires that the NeXT applications and data be accessable from non-NeXT workstations. It should be emphasized to software developers that data written by NeXT applications should be Unix-style -- readable ASCII files that can be managed with other Unix utilities. Obviously, there will be a loss in functionality (there goes that nice interface), but it is very important that people be able to get to their data. Source is another important topic with universities, which it seems NeXT is still side stepping. We don't want the source to IB or any of the NeXT ``jewels''. We need OS source to insure that we can integrate the NeXT into our environment and provide quick-fixes to bugs for which NeXT has yet to release fixes. We have source licenses from many vendors, and they do not appear to be concerned. We don't expect to get source for free -- if we go with NeXT, we will be willing to purchase a source license. Steve Jobs said that our having source would make it more difficult for NeXT to provide support. Well, if NeXT doesn't provide source, there's a good chance that support won't be a problem, as we won't be purchasing NeXTs. I don't think that NeXT spent enough time looking at how higher education uses workstations to facilitate information access and exchange. If NeXT wait too long before acting, the current NeXT machine will be outclassed. As it stands now, universities can purchase workstations with comparable CPU power, albeit without IB, DPS, and the other bundled software. These other workstations can be used as file servers and can be purchased diskless. Another member of the Computer Science Center staff (Brenda Guarnieri -- Hi, Brenda!) remarked that if NeXT doesn't meet our expectations, NeXT may become the ``Delorean'' of the computer field. I hope not. Mark Feldman >From: jgreely@diplodocus.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely)
Date: Sun 26-Jan-1989 18:50:46 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <4474@umd5.umd.edu> feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman) writes: > The university computing model requires that users be able to access > and share data easily throughout the campus. When someone is forced > to remove their data (optical drive) when they leave a NeXT, they > are being forced to isolate their data. An optical floppy at home, > left in a backpack or car, or anywhere that there isn't a NeXT is > useless. My opinion on the use of optical discs for user files is that it's a warm-fuzzy sort of thing. We'd never be comfortable with it here, and would give students home directories mounted from a generic NFS server. The real use for the opticals is so that users can transport their own material in a more useful form than magtape. The option to use opticals for non-critical files would take the drain off of the fileserver ("If you *really* want a private copy of nethack, keep it on your own disc, kid"). > An optical drive-only NeXT isn't desirable in public workstation > rooms -- those rooms where students can access workstations. The > best workstation for public rooms is a workstation that boots off > the network and uses file servers, perhaps keeping its swap space on > a local hard disk. Booting off the network is supported, although we haven't had time to set it up yet here. This is the method of choice for a lab of student workstations, and NeXT hasn't ignored it. In fact, the release notes mention several enhancements to BOOTP that will make it easier to handle the whole process. My real concern with opticals in a student lab is verification of machines. If J Random Undergrad can reboot from his own disc, I don't want him being trusted by our network for anything. It boils down to the statement that if someone has root access to one optical-equipped NeXT box, he can be root on any others he comes across. This problem doesn't get any mention in the 0.8 release notes. > I don't think that NeXT spent enough time looking at how higher > education uses workstations to facilitate information access and > exchange. I don't think of the NeXT machine as a workstation, at least not in the manner most people think of it. Some people have called it a Sun-killer, which is nonsense. The orientation of the product will put it into places where people would buy Macs, not Suns. I don't believe that any engineering or computer science program will buy them for students. Research, maybe. Liberal arts departments are more likely to use it for students (and how many of *them* can afford it?). Personally, I've begun to think of the NeXT machine as a very bright laser printer. -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely) The Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Sciences >From: johnl@ima.ima.isc.com (John R. Levine)
Date: Sun 26-Jan-1989 20:53:33 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <4474@umd5.umd.edu> feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman) writes: > The university computing model requires that users be able to access > and share data easily throughout the campus. When someone is forced > to remove their data (optical drive) when they leave a NeXT, they > are being forced to isolate their data. An optical floppy at home, > left in a backpack or car, or anywhere that there isn't a NeXT is > useless. Because the user's files are not being kept on a central > server, as is done when people use our VAXstations, there is no way > for someone to dial in and access their files. We can back up > servers, but in the NeXT model the user is responsible for the > integrity of their data. If you want to boot your NeXT from the network, store your files centrally, and get to them via NFS, go ahead. It all works now. I don't think anyone seriously expects multiple NeXTs not to be networked any more than you'd expect multiple Suns or Vaxes not to. (The Ethernet is standard, after all.) The optical disk is a perfectly reasonable storage medium for people who don't entirely trust the central server to keep their files around, at the end of a term for example. Also keep in mind the amount of data we're talking about here. Say you have 10,000 students each with one optical disk. That's 2500 gigabytes of storage, a large amount even by modern standards. Given the hardware on the NeXT, we can expect users to have large files full of digitized images and sound. Is it really mission critical to have centralized, backed up copies of 10,000 megabytes of pictures of people's gerbils and voice mail of light bulb jokes? > The need to share data also requires that the NeXT applications and > data be accessable from non-NeXT workstations. It should be > emphasized to software developers that data written by NeXT > applications should be Unix-style -- readable ASCII files that can > be managed with other Unix utilities. Obviously, there will be a > loss in functionality (there goes that nice interface), but it is > very important that people be able to get to their data. Most of the demo programs that NeXT provides seem to keep their data (as opposed to interface builder and screen design stuff) in normal ASCII files. Printer output is postscript. > Source is another important topic with universities, which it seems > NeXT is still side stepping. I was at the developers' camp two weeks ago and at the banquet, Steve Jobs took questions, many of which concerned source code. The opposition to making source available seems to be more pragmatic than theological, they don't want proliferating slightly incompatible versions of everything that would make it harder to interchange applications. He gave the impression that reasoned arguments could persuade them to release parts of the code, particularly the less propritary parts. On the other hand, people do seem to get work done on Macs and PCs without source code, so there's some suspicion that the demands for source code are based as much on Unix tradition as on real need. >From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Date: Sun 26-Jan-1989 23:14:13 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <32681@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> J Greely <jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: >I don't think of the NeXT machine as a workstation, at least not in >the manner most people think of it. Some people have called it a >Sun-killer, which is nonsense. The orientation of the product will >put it into places where people would buy Macs, not Suns. The following are University prices. The Sun prices are from the latest Sun price list (let me remind you, this is AFTER discount). For the sake of argument, let's suppose the optical drive is too slow for use as a disk in a typical workstation environment. In order of price: Machine Disk Tape Memory Display Clock CPU FPU Price 3/50 0 4M 19" 15MHz 68020 $4546 NeXT 0 od 8M 17" 25MHz 68030 68882 $6500 3/50 71M 4M 19" 15MHz 68020 $6646 3/50 0 8M 19" 15MHz 68020 $6926 3/60 0 4M 19" 20MHz 68020 68881 $7300 NeXT 330M od 8M 17" 25MHz 68030 68882 $8500 3/50 330M 1/4" 4M 19" 15MHz 68020 $11126 3/50 330M 1/4" 8M 19" 15MHz 68020 $13506 3/60 330M 1/4" 4M 19" 20MHz 68020 68881 $13900 3/60 330M 1/4" 8M 19" 20MHz 68020 68881 $16280 So, an $8500 NeXT machine is the equivalent of a $16000 Sun, even if you don't care about: 25% increase in clock speed. Next step up in processors. A DSP. A good user interface. Lisp. (that's another $4000 from Sun) A word processor. Online dictionary. Online thesaurus. Mathematica (can you say $600 for that Sun?) The od has 256M capacity, versus 60M for 1/4" tape. An easy way to build good user interfaces. Channel processors. Sound. A word processor. A UNIX designed to understand multiprocessors and distributed computing. Now, I'm not saying the NeXT machine doesn't have some gotchas, at the moment. But they are mostly bugs due to the current beta release of the software. And Sun's software STILL has bugs and gotchas, as anyone who does networking on a large scale will be happy to tell you. To say that the NeXT box is not going to compete with Suns for the workstation market is a little strange. I'm not sure what you mean by "orientation"; the NeXT machine does everything Suns do. The fact that it does even more doesn't make it LESS suitable for engineering work, does it? I don't think it's going to kill Suns. But I think Sun is going to have to significantly reduce its prices once the NeXT box is in quantity production. And that will be good even for those of you who are offended by good user interfaces and bundled software :-) :-) :-). Steve >From: paul@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Lansky)
Date: Sun 27-Jan-1989 01:38:35 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <32681@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, jgreely@diplodocus.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) writes: > In article <4474@umd5.umd.edu> feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman) writes: > > The university computing model requires that users be able to access > > and share data easily throughout the campus. When someone is forced > > to remove their data (optical drive) when they leave a NeXT, they > > are being forced to isolate their data. An optical floppy at home, > > left in a backpack or car, or anywhere that there isn't a NeXT is > > useless. > > My opinion on the use of optical discs for user files is that it's a > warm-fuzzy sort of thing. We'd never be comfortable with it here, and > would give students home directories mounted from a generic NFS server. > The real use for the opticals is so that users can transport their own > material in a more useful form than magtape. The option to use opticals > for non-critical files would take the drain off of the fileserver ("If > you *really* want a private copy of nethack, keep it on your own disc, > kid"). I think it is a seriously short-sighted mistake to simply regard the optical disks as student storage, or portable personal directories, for 'non-critical files', detritus, games, and love letters. It probably does make sense to store most student files on a server. The real beauty of the optical disks is the way in which they enable lots of problems and tasks to be contemplated which were previously dismissed because of the amount of storage they would consume. In processing digital signals, for example, a 75 megabyte file is not particularly large, but I would bet that in most traditional hard-disk academic environments administrators would shrink with horror at the thought of a student occupying 200 megabytes of their online storage. It would be utterly out of the question for a professor to contemplate a course with 20 students, each of whom would need 250 megabytes of disk storage. The issue is that the ways of thinking about disk storage and computing task have become petrified because of the hard constraints on these resources. Now that this storage is available lots of signal processing and graphical applications, for example, which need large amounts of disk storage can start to filter down to the student level, whereas previously they were mainly the purview of researchers, professors and graduate students. The marriage of this capability with a machine which is capable of signal and image processing is a brilliant stroke. The possiblility of almost infinite, inexpensive, disk storage, perhaps a bit slow for a year or two, creates a really new dimension in computing, educational computing in particular. Whether you run the system from an internal hard disk, from a server (I suspect the best way is NOT from an optical disk), or whatever, is a problem that doesn't seem all that difficult to solve. But any administrators who can't see the fact that this configuration opens a new door, are short-changing their constituents and ought to go back to school themselves. >From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Date: Sun 27-Jan-1989 16:40:27 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <32681@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> J Greely <jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: > >Booting off the network is supported, although we haven't had time >to set it up yet here. This is the method of choice for a lab of >student workstations, and NeXT hasn't ignored it. In fact, the >release notes mention several enhancements to BOOTP that will make >it easier to handle the whole process. Ok, but you can't use a NeXT as the BOOTP/NFS server, unless you are willing to pay someone to make sure that it is on all the time. > My real concern with opticals in a student lab is verification of >machines. If J Random Undergrad can reboot from his own disc, I >don't want him being trusted by our network for anything. It boils >down to the statement that if someone has root access to one >optical-equipped NeXT box, he can be root on any others he comes >across. This problem doesn't get any mention in the 0.8 release >notes. There is no way to prevent a user from booting off the optical or prevent them from booting in single-user mode. This means that anyone can become root. Prventing someone from going root helps security somewhat (anything that you can throw in their path is helpful), but not too much as any PC user can go ``root''. What we need is authentication, so we decide to put MIT Project Athena's Kerberos authentication systems on the NeXT. Uh oh, no OS source. We're stuck. In article <3231@ima.ima.isc.com> johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) writes: > >Given >the hardware on the NeXT, we can expect users to have large files full of >digitized images and sound. Is it really mission critical to have >centralized, backed up copies of 10,000 megabytes of pictures of people's >gerbils and voice mail of light bulb jokes? Good point! Now if only the person sitting at the NeXT could manipulate the optical without having to become root. And while we're sitting in front of the NeXT, it would be nice if the user at the NeXT could prevent other users from popping up windows and making sounds, again, without becoming root. >I was at the developers' camp two weeks ago and at the banquet, Steve Jobs >took questions, many of which concerned source code. The opposition to >making source available seems to be more pragmatic than theological, they >don't want proliferating slightly incompatible versions of everything that >would make it harder to interchange applications. He gave the impression >that reasoned arguments could persuade them to release parts of the code, >particularly the less propritary parts. I was there, too. Did you have the lasagna or turkey (or was it chicken?)? I had the turkey, and as a matter of fact, I was the first person in the group to ask about source. I still think that NeXT is side stepping the issue. For many people, the decision to purchase NeXTs is resting on availability of operating system (not application) source. As I said in my previous posting, we have source licenses from other vendors. We would prefer that the vendors provide all of the support -- quick fixes for bugs and the extensibility needed to integrate their systems into our environmnet, but the vendors cannot provide these services to the extent that we would like, so we have source. Has this cause our other vendors headaches? No. We've been able to do our thing and help them in the process by pointing out (in detail) OS bugs. If the Internet virus of months back happened now and was a NeXT virus, we would be forced to disable much of the networking software or turn our NeXTs off until receiving updates from NeXT. As it happened, our systems staff had the necessary source and quiclky put out fixed software. We are a networked campus with many network services, including NTP (network time protocol) time. We have expertise in both UNIX and NTP -- the UNIX NTP daemon was written here. When the people who wrote the UNIX NTP daemon tried to port it to the NeXT, it hung. Some nasty Mach/networking bug causes the NeXT to forget all of its interrupts or go into a very tight kernel loop. Whateve the case, the NeXT hangs. Can we fix it? Can we find the OS bug and report it to NeXT (helping them!)? No. We don't have the necessary source. > On the other hand, people do seem >to get work done on Macs and PCs without source code, so there's some >suspicion that the demands for source code are based as much on Unix >tradition as on real need. Most PC applications make very little use of DOS, as DOS does not provide many useful services. Many (most?) PC applications talk directly to the harware (keyboard, screen, speaker), so having DOS source doesn't do much for you. Many applications do make use of BIOS routines and the source to BIOS is available. The Mac provides more services and a more structured environment, but it is still much less complicated than a multi-tasking, multi-user workstation (e.g., the NeXT). NeXT must commit itself now to providing what the university community -- its target market -- wants. I have trouble believing that our NeXT concerns are very different from those at any other university, even if I sometimes have trouble putting them into words. He who hesitates is lost, or, in this cae, skipped over at purchasing time. Mark >From: abe@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Vic Abell)
Date: Sun 28-Jan-1989 00:21:40 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <400@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu.UUCP (Steve Dorner) writes: >The following are University prices. The Sun prices are from the latest >Sun price list (let me remind you, this is AFTER discount). For the >sake of argument, let's suppose the optical drive is too slow for use >as a disk in a typical workstation environment. I'd definitely would want to boot off a device 5-6 times slower than a hard drive. >NeXT 0 od 8M 17" 25MHz 68030 68882 $6500 ^^^^^ >NeXT 330M od 8M 17" 25MHz 68030 68882 $8500 ^^^^^ Don't forget to tack on the "hidden" charges like support. A NeXT rep at a show here said whoever sold it would have to add on 2-3% or so for the money they had to dish out to be able to sell the machines (training, etc). Not that an extra 2-3% is all that much. Was any of those Sun prices with color monitors? Those color monitors aren't cheap. >Now, I'm not saying the NeXT machine doesn't have some gotchas, at the >moment. But they are mostly bugs due to the current beta release of >the software. And Sun's software STILL has bugs and gotchas, as anyone >who does networking on a large scale will be happy to tell you. And NeXT's software won't in the near future? When your dealing with the amount of code that goes into OS's, bugs are a fact of life. >To say that the NeXT box is not going to compete with Suns for the >workstation market is a little strange. I'm not sure what you mean by >"orientation"; the NeXT machine does everything Suns do. The fact that >it does even more doesn't make it LESS suitable for engineering work, >does it? True, but remember ONLY at school! I wonder what will happen when some student graduates with his cube and no longer has support for it. But then again, how many kids have $10+ grand to shell out for a machine they can effectively use. (cube, 330 hard, printer). >I don't think it's going to kill Suns. But I think Sun is going to have >to significantly reduce its prices once the NeXT box is in quantity production. >And that will be good even for those of you who are offended by good >user interfaces and bundled software :-) :-) :-). No doubt! Now if only regular folks could buy it, and not just folks in school, and usually only the staff. It could be a big hit if anybody who could buy a Mac SE (loaded) or a II(slightly less loaded), could buy a NeXT. kareth. >From: deraadt@xenlink.UUCP (Theo A. DeRaadt)
Date: Sun 27-Jan-1989 23:37:47 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <3231@ima.ima.isc.com>, johnl@ima.ima.isc.com (John R. Levine) writes: > I was at the developers' camp two weeks ago and at the banquet, Steve Jobs > took questions, many of which concerned source code. The opposition to > making source available seems to be more pragmatic than theological, they > don't want proliferating slightly incompatible versions of everything that > would make it harder to interchange applications. He gave the impression > that reasoned arguments could persuade them to release parts of the code, > particularly the less propritary parts. On the other hand, people do seem > to get work done on Macs and PCs without source code, so there's some ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > suspicion that the demands for source code are based as much on Unix > tradition as on real need. That's some comparison. Yes, people write hacks and hacks and hacks and hacks to get by bugs IN the operating system, and next release it breaks. Just look at any program that was written for the original Mac on a MacII, programs that do anything *really neat* ussually break. Did you know that every Sun comes with source to the windowing environment on it? We hacked it ourselves to add full-color backdrops and such, but how many others have? Having source made it so much easier - we had a starting point and we could see *exactly* how things were done from the bottom up. Hate to compare this to Sun's, but did you ever really try to read some of those manuals? Yet, you go into the source, and it's obvious. <tdr. >From: tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Tso)
Date: Sun 28-Jan-1989 06:38:16 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <4476@umd5.umd.edu> feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman) writes: >There is no way to prevent a user from booting off the optical or prevent >them from booting in single-user mode. This means that anyone can become >root. Prventing someone from going root helps security somewhat (anything >that you can throw in their path is helpful), but not too much as any PC user >can go ``root''. What we need is authentication, so we decide to put MIT >Project Athena's Kerberos authentication systems on the NeXT. Uh oh, no OS >source. We're stuck. We at MIT have managed to get Kerberos up and running on the NeXT. Since Berkeley has released the networking code, it is possible to get a Kerberized rlogin, rsh, etc. This will also allow you not to be screwed over by Sun's yellow pages. MIT Project Athena's Hesiod (a general-purpose name service layered on top of named --- our answer to yellow pages) also more or less dropped right in. Kerberos and Hesiod are available by anonymous FTP from ATHENA-DIST.MIT.EDU. >In article <3231@ima.ima.isc.com> johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) writes: > >Good point! Now if only the person sitting at the NeXT could manipulate the >optical without having to become root. And while we're sitting in front of >the NeXT, it would be nice if the user at the NeXT could prevent other users >from popping up windows and making sounds, again, without becoming root. We've also gotten MIT Project Athena's "attach" program running on the NeXT. It uses Kerberos and Hesiod (although neither is strictly necessary), it allows users to mount and umount NFS file systems by commands such as "attach games", where hesiod expands "games" to "NFS /mit/lockers/games m4-035-w.mit.edu w /mit/games", which attach interprets and Does The Right Thing with it. I will be shortly extending attach also deal with UFS file systems, such as the optical disk. I will also be shortly (tonight) be extending attach to restrict what users can mount and where they can mount things. Attach has not been exported by Project Athena yet; but if anybody is interested, let me know. >If the Internet virus of months back happened now and was a NeXT virus, we >would be forced to disable much of the networking software or turn our NeXTs >off until receiving updates from NeXT. As it happened, our systems staff >had the necessary source and quiclky put out fixed software. We are a >networked campus with many network services, including NTP (network time >protocol) time. We have expertise in both UNIX and NTP -- the UNIX NTP >daemon was written here. When the people who wrote the UNIX NTP daemon >tried to port it to the NeXT, it hung. Some nasty Mach/networking bug >causes the NeXT to forget all of its interrupts or go into a very tight >kernel loop. Whateve the case, the NeXT hangs. Can we fix it? Can we find >the OS bug and report it to NeXT (helping them!)? No. We don't have the >necessary source. Actually, when I tried running ntpd, not only did it managed to crash the system, it stomped all over the (I assume) non-volitile memory where the boot preferences are stored. Fairly impressive bug. I seriously hope that the NeXT people are paying attention, and that the higher management (like Jobs) actually reads some of this. Believe it or not, Apple may actually be more reasonable with A/UX sources than NeXT is. NeXT can ill-afford to alienate the developers by being so obnoxious on the source code issue..... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Theodore Ts'o bloom-beacon!mit-athena!tytso 3 Ames St., Cambridge, MA 02139 tytso@athena.mit.edu If it's for real, it isn't! >From: asd@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth)
Date: Sun 01-Feb-1989 00:28:44 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <669@blake.acs.washington.edu> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.UUCP (Mark Crispin) writes: >The problem is these cretins who believe in "trusted hosts" and that >being root on some workstation entitles one to root elsewhere. True, but I wonder: Should that include access to backup devices on other machines? For instance, on our equipment (non-NeXt) I can't do an rrestore or rdump because if I do it as root, I get a permission denied on reading the remote device, and if I do it as a regular user, I get a permission denied on the chown. A loser either way. Do the NeXt network backup commands handle this elegently without resorting to "trusted hosts"? BTW, yesterday I got to play with a $2000, 100 dot-per-inch X terminal, which can be used with a standard 386 PC and is available to non-students NOW. The NeXt is nice, (I saw one at MacWorld) but if it doesn't become available soon, the world is going to pass it by... Ron >From: ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian)
Date: Sun 01-Feb-1989 00:28:44 From: Unknown Subject: Re: NeXT concerns In article <669@blake.acs.washington.edu> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.UUCP (Mark Crispin) writes: >The problem is these cretins who believe in "trusted hosts" and that >being root on some workstation entitles one to root elsewhere. True, but I wonder: Should that include access to backup devices on other machines? For instance, on our equipment (non-NeXt) I can't do an rrestore or rdump because if I do it as root, I get a permission denied on reading the remote device, and if I do it as a regular user, I get a permission denied on the chown. A loser either way. Do the NeXt network backup commands handle this elegently without resorting to "trusted hosts"? BTW, yesterday I got to play with a $2000, 100 dot-per-inch X terminal, which can be used with a standard 386 PC and is available to non-students NOW. The NeXt is nice, (I saw one at MacWorld) but if it doesn't become available soon, the world is going to pass it by... Ron >From: gshippen@pollux.usc.edu (Gregory Shippen)
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.