derek@coco2.albany.edu (Cinderella Man) (03/09/91)
At SUNYA, we are in the process of installing 40MB HDs and RAM upgrades
into all of our user room SEs, finally rendering them useful. However,
with hard drives comes the need for protection: from copying, deleting,
or modifying files, and from viruses.
I've been pushing for buying MacPassword, which seems appropriate and
solid, but the price is high -- and with our state budget in limbo, hard
to pay. So I'm looking into other alternatives.
What I'd like to do is partition the hard drives into "startup" and
"temp" volumes, of 35MB and 5MB respectively. I'd then put DiskLock
on the startup volume, and let users use the temp volume as a storage
place. Disinfectant and its companion INIT would be used for virus
checking.
However, this scheme can be defeated by booting with a floppy, so my
question for the net.mac.techies is:
How can I prevent the Mac from booting with a floppy?
Is there a way of modifying either the Shutdown Manager (or boot blocks,
or whatever) to make the startup routine ignore any disks in the FDs?
Any technical information and suggestions are much appreciated. E-mail
or post, whichever is appropriate.
Thank you!
Derek L.
--
feel no fret feel no fret feel no fret you can wait and feel no fretRick_McCormack@mindlink.UUCP (Rick McCormack) (03/09/91)
In an article, derek L <derek@coco2.albany.edu> asks Derek: > However, this scheme can be defeated by booting with a Derek: > floppy, so my question for the net.mac.techies is: Derek: > Derek: > How can I prevent the Mac from booting with a floppy? Derek: > Derek: > Is there a way of modifying either the Shutdown Manager (or Derek: > boot blocks, or whatever) to make the startup routine ignore Derek: > any disks in the FDs? Derek: > Derek: > Any technical information and suggestions are much Derek: > appreciated. E-mail or post, whichever is appropriate. Derek: > Derek: > Thank you! A simple solution to your problem, if neither you or the students will need the floppy drive much (i.e. it can be used under some supervision) would be to put lock plates in the floppy drives. Several manufactureres make security systems that have these plates with locks to block access to the floppy.
derek@leah.albany.edu (Cinderella Man) (03/10/91)
From Rick_McCormack@mindlink.UUCP (Rick McCormack) come these immortal words: >A simple solution to your problem, if neither you or the students will need >floppy drive much (i.e. it can be used under some supervision) would be to put >lock plates in the floppy drives. Several manufactureres make security system >that have these plates with locks to block access to the floppy. Unfortunately, this is not an option -- the students must be able to save their work to a floppy for transportation, so the drives must be accessible. I just need to find some way of making them ignored at startup. (Hopefully we'll get the money allocated for MacPassword, but if not I gots to look elsewhere). Derek L. -- + + "When nothing else remains, one must scream. Silence is the ultimate + + + crime against humanity." -- Nadezhda Mandelstam + + _________________________ [Affix disclaimer here] ________________________ + + + + + Each one's life a novel no one else has read -- Peart + + + +