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