group permissions and 4.2bsd

[William L. Sebok]

We have a 4.1 BSD kernel with hacks for accounting (no flames.. I bitterly
fought it and lost).  Each process has three id's  uid, gid and the aid
(accounting id).  The purpose of this is to separate accounting from file
permissions. A login name can charge its time to one of several "accounts",
which one selects by answering a "Charge: " question given after having
successfully given the password.  There is no awkwardness of transferring files
between accounts because the "aid" is not associated with any file permissions
or ownerships.
  When I saw the "accounting" groups in 4.2 BSD I was hoping that it was
something of the same sort.  Unfortunately it is not.  It looks like the 4.2
kernel is also going to get hacked.  I wish that a disentangling of accounting
and file permissions could be made part of the "official" Unix (whatever that
is).
-- 
Bill Sebok			Princeton University, Astrophysics
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