Subject: Re: /sbin/macos ...self-destruct mechanism?
From: Bill Fink (billfink@mindspring.com)
Date: Sun Nov 11 2001 - 11:19:43 MST
On Sun, 11 Nov 2001, Timothy A. Seufert wrote:
> At 11:11 PM -0500 11/10/01, Bill Fink wrote:
> >On Sat Nov 10 2001, Timothy A. Seufert wrote:
> >
> >> setenv boot-device hd:N,ofboot.b
> >>
> >> where N is the partition number of your Linux bootstrap partition.
> >> Note that OF uses hexadecimal, so if the number is 10 or higher, you
> >> need to use 'a' 'b' 'c' etc. instead of '10' '11' '12' etc. for N.
> >
> >Ummm, I was with you until the above. My boot partition is on hda13,
> >and my boot-device is "hd:13,\\:tbxi" (I'm on a dual 500 MHz G4).
>
> Hmmm. All I can say is that I've experienced having to use
> hexadecimal. I *think* it was on a PowerBook 2400 I was trying to
> get quik running on. Even though I can't remember the machine
> exactly, I'm sure the event happened, because it was one of those
> classic "forehead slap" moments: after a couple hours of pounding my
> head against the wall I finally realized I just needed to use hex.
>
> Probably just another difference between older and newer OF versions.
I could certainly believe that.
> >BTW, I used /sbin/macos last summer on an old world machine that I
> >normally booted via quik, but I had a summer student that just needed
> >to run MacOS, so I set up a macos login that just ran /sbin/macos
> >(the version that sets the boot-device to "/AAPL,ROM"). It then
> >booted using BootX which I had default to MacOS. When I wanted to
> >get back into Linux, I just selected it from BootX, and once the
> >system was up, I ran a script which reset the boot variables using
> >nvsetenv to once again boot using quik (so I could for example reboot
> >it from home and it would automatically come back up in Linux).
>
> Well, part of my thinking was that the script was so simple that
> anybody who really did want it was probably not going to be deterred
> by its absence. :) It's one of those things that if you know what
> it's for, you know how to replicate it in about a minute (at most).
Ya, I actually started to put a PPS on my earlier e-mail that I really
wouldn't lose any sleep over someone removing /sbin/macos, since it is
trivial for someone that knows what they're doing to replicate. But I
still think it's worth repeating that novices shouldn't run stuff as
root if they're not sure what the ramifications are, or are incapable of
cleaning up any system mess that might result. I'd state that as a
general rule, that if you don't know what running something as root
might do to your system, ask first and run second rather than the other
way around (there are of course exceptions to any rule).
-Bill
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