File permissions under SunOS 4.1.1

[Brendan Kehoe]

>/etc/utmp must be world writable since shelltool creates entries there.
>This is an acknowledged problem.

I've used two different fixes at different times for this .. as long as
you start a window that grabs the console (e.g. shelltool -C or cmdtool
-C) as the very first thing that comes up, the messages "Make sure you can
write to /etc/utmp!" get swallowed in there. The other option is to edit
/usr/lib/libsun*.s{o,a}.* [I forget which, two of them have it], and
replace the pathname /etc/utmp with /dev/null.  That'll make it shut up.

Note that with your windows not appearing in utmp, talk and a few other
things won't work.

But I think it's a fair tradeoff for someone being able to be on your
system without you knowing, don't you?

     Brendan Kehoe - Widener Sun Network Manager - brendan at cs.widener.edu
       On hiatus at brendan at albert.ai.mit.edu whilst our router is down.