From: utzoo!decvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!essick Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: Re: VAX UNIX magtape lockout wanted - (nf) Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.244 Posted: Thu Jul 15 11:28:10 1982 Received: Mon Jul 19 03:53:30 1982 #R:iuvax:-17700:uiucdcs:13700004:000:888 uiucdcs!essick Jul 15 10:42:00 1982 I would imagine that implementing a utility to manage assigning tape drives would be reasonably simple. In the simplest case, where anyone can use any device (nice idealistic system), two programs would need to be written. assign "device" would merely change the ownership and protection bits on the "device". So "assign /dev/rmt0" would assign the tape drive to me. A similar program called "release" would set things back to normal. One can build all sorts of checks into the program to ensure that the user is allowed to use the device, that all references to a device are caught (as in rmt0 and mt0). It would also be a good idea to have the release program make sure that the user owns the device before setting the permissions back. One can also add time-outs and all sorts of other bells and whistles. Ray Essick University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign uiucdcs!essick