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- Welcome to the new version of AXsh. Due to a disk crash (my new, 21 days
- old Seagate11200N (1G) just stopped working in the middle of one night)
- I almost lost my most recent AXsh sources and other development material I
- had. However, I managed to salvage all vital files. On the other hand,
- Lattice C 5.10a is now history, I did not have time to save it before the
- disk died completely. Fortunately I don't really need it anymore, because
- I now have SAS/C 6.51. Every cloud has a silver-lining...
-
- So, the disk crash has delayed the release of AXsh1.31 even more and now
- I also have to release AXsh 1.31 as-is, because I can't do any improvements
- to the Lattice5.10a code anymore. I know that some users have already
- got very tired of waiting for the new AXsh release. I just hope I am
- forgiven..
-
- About my future plans concerning AXsh:
- I have decided to start developing AXsh.library from scratch (I already
- had one version) without the dos.library-level protections. AXsh.library
- is then used by my AXsh shell, which is a real ks2.0 UserShell, not just
- a program running on top of the AmigaDOS shell like AXsh is now.
- AXsh.library provides routines for user and group handling and for
- resource database management (configuration entries).
-
- In this stage AXsh would still have those slow and restrictive command and
- parameter checking routines.
-
- After this there are basically three ways to proceed:
-
- 1) Just use the shell-level protections
- + No modification to the news- and mail-systems needed
- - Only 'safe' programs can be used
- - Hard to configure, all allowed commands/files/directories
- have to be listed for each user-level
-
- 2) Co-operation with MuFS
- + No command line argument checking needed
- + Group system makes the 'user level'-concept obsolete
- + Configuration is done in file-per-file basis instead of defining
- the allowed programs, files and directories in a single file
- - Modifications to programs that need to access system
- files and/or running them in SUID-mode
- - Dependancy of another shareware product
- (Also, MuFS 'does too much' for my purposes)
-
- 3) Implement protections in dos.library level
- + No command line argument checking needed
- + Group system makes the 'user level'-concept obsolete
- + Configuration is done in file-per-file basis instead of defining
- the allowed programs, files and directories in a single file
- + Usable/implementable on normal (pre v39) filesystems
- (easier and more efficient in >=v39 filesystems)
- + Hard file-quota limits are possible and files are trackable
- throughout the whole systems
- [+ Possibility to collect statistics of filesystem usages
- (e.g. bytes read/written, opens, lockings etc.) ]
- - Modifications to programs that need to access system
- files and/or running them in SUID-mode
- - Programs that do direct IO without dos.library shouldn't be
- used (e.g. programs using ixemul.library)
-
- Address all thought about these things to 'albert@cs.tut.fi'
- I would like to know what you would like this second-generation
- AXsh to have, either from user's viewpoint or from administrator's
- view or even the programmer's opinions about what the AXsh.library
- should look like.
-
- -Pasi
-
-