mahler@pur-ee.UUCP (Mahler) (02/11/85)
The second distribution of the access program is now available. For
those of you unfamiliar with it, access was described in the paper
"Access - A Program to Interpret Pathname Access Permissions for the
UNIX Operating System", which was presented at the Winter 1985 USENIX
conference in Dallas by Stephen J. Mahler of the Purdue Engineering
Computer Network. A copy of the abstract from this paper is included
below.
Because we had so much trouble posting the first distribution in
net.sources, we have decided not to post the second distribution.
Instead, it is available via UUCP or FTP from our site. Instructions
for obtaining the distribution through each method are given below.
If for some reason you cannot obtain the distribution through either
of these routes, please contact us and we will attempt to make special
arrangements with you.
The distribution consists of four files. The first file, entitled
README, contains instructions on what to do after you have copied
the files. The other three files, "doc.shar", "access.shar", and
"misc.shar", are shell archives containing the sources for access
and its related programs.
TO OBTAIN THE DISTRIBUTION VIA FTP
If you are on the ARPAnet, you can most easily obtain the
distribution via FTP. You should connect to PURDUE-ECN, login
"anonymous". Send your real id (e.g. foo@bar) for a password.
After logging in, cd into the directory "pub/access", and copy
the files contained there.
For 4.2BSD systems, this can be done with the commands
% ftp purdue-ecn
Login (purdue-ecn:yourname): anonymous
Password (purdue-ecn:anonymous): yourname@yourhost
ftp> cd pub/access
ftp> get README
ftp> get access.shar
ftp> get doc.shar
ftp> get misc.shar
ftp> quit
%
The file README contains instructions for extracting the
other files.
Note that PURDUE-ECN is a new site on the ARPAnet, and you
may have to update your host tables from the NIC. If you
cannot do this for some reason, our network number is
128.46.129.15 (decimal).
TO OBTAIN THE DISTRIBUTION VIA UUCP
You can also obtain the distribution via UUCP. We talk to
(among others) decvax, ihnp4, and ucbvax. Our site name is
"pur-ee". To save these sites some money though, we would
perfer you call us directly. Our phone number is (317) 494-7683,
login "uucp", password "UUCP". We support both 300 and 1200
baud dialups.
The files are contained in ~uucp/access. You can use the
commands below to copy the files:
uucp pur-ee!~/access/README README
uucp pur-ee!~/access/access.shar access.shar
uucp pur-ee!~/access/doc.shar doc.shar
uucp pur-ee!~/access/misc.shar misc.shar
The file README contains instructions for extracting the
other files.
The following is a copy of the abstract from the paper mentioned above.
Access - A Program to Interpret Pathname Access
Permissions for the UNIX- Operating System
Stephen J. Mahler
David A. Curry
Engineering Computer Network
School of Electrical Engineering
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana 47907
ABSTRACT
The program described in this paper, access,
was written to help users interpret the permis-
sions set on their files by showing in a concise
format who may read, write, execute, and remove a
given file. Rather than simply reporting the per-
missions on the file itself, access takes into
account the permission bits set on the directories
leading to the file. This results in a correct
listing of exactly who may access the file,
whereas reporting the permissions on the file
alone does not.
October 1984