Re: Fun with devices [was: Re: /dev/tcx0 crashes SunOS 4.1.4 on Sparc

Doug Hughes (doug@ENG.AUBURN.EDU)
Thu, 22 May 1997 13:24:58 -0500

On Wed, 21 May 1997, Walter Hafner wrote:

> -> If you try to read /dev/tcx0 on a SunOS 4.1.4 Sparc 20 (it didn't
> -> work on a 10; didn't have access to a Sparc 5, so I couldn't check
> -> that), you will cause a system panic. How do you read it, you ask?
> -> Simply "cat /dev/tcx0" or "ls /dev/tcx0/*". You don't need special
>
> Since we're speaking of devices: Ever tried the 'cat /dev/zero >
> /dev/keyboard' on a SunOS machine? :-) No special rights required. I
> didn't try it lately, but anything from a Sparc1 to a Sparc10 under
> SunOS is dead.
>

These sorts of things are easily taken care of with
/etc/fbtab on SunOS4 and /etc/logindevperm on Solaris2.
Any framebuffer, keyboard, mouse, audio device, etc
should have an entry here to prevent these sorts of pranks.

____________________________________________________________________________
Doug Hughes Engineering Network Services
System/Net Admin Auburn University
doug@eng.auburn.edu