[fa.info-vax] VMS V4.0 Security features

info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA (10/04/84)

From: Richard Garland <OC.GARLAND%CU20B@COLUMBIA>

There was a list of new features of VMS V4.0 published in the July Pageswapper
(Vol. 6, number 1) submitted by Trevor Kempsell (VMS Product manager, DEC).
The Pageswapper is the newsletter of the VAX SIG of DECUS.  If you can hear
the sound of my voice and do not belong to DECUS (free) and do not subscribe
to the Pageswapper ($5.00)you should.  You are not required to *like* VMS
or even **like** DEC to do this.  Many queries to this list would be
unnecessary if everyone read this stuff.  A summary of the security
features mentioned in the article (2 pages out of 14):

	Scavenge protection -
				File highwater marking

				Erase on delete

				Erase on extend

	New Privileges -
				GRPPRV privilege

				READALL privilege

	Identifiers
				General Identifiers	(interest groups 
							independent of UIC)

				Alphanumeric UICs

				Full longword UICs

	Rights database	
				text strings representing
				numeric values

				Holders of identifiers

	Access Control Lists
				Extended protection

				Logging of access attempts

				General information (in file header)

	Security alarms

				SECURITY operator class to get messages

				Per file alarms

				system wide alarms

	Login security

				Breakin detection	(disable line after
							so many login failures)

				last login message

				secure server


I didn't attempt to go into the detail of the article, hence some of these
things may be "teasers".  There wasn't a whole lot more but there was a
sentence or 2 on each item.  The rest of the article on VMS features
was of course of equal interest.

					Rg
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