silver (02/18/83)
The documentation does not make this clear. The System III mknod intrinsic checks effective uid == 0 for all except fifo's, which anyone can make. Given this, why not have the mknod command subject to the same rules as all other commands, i.e., it may or may not run as effective superuser, thereby restricting or granting access to the public? What stupid thing am I overlooking?? Alan Silverstein csu-cs!hp-esd!ajs but please post the answer if you are correct and it's short and sweet.