Network Security Violations

[Tony Facca]

In article <224 at dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, merritt at iris613.gsfc.nasa.gov (John H Merritt) writes:
> 
> Try adding:
> 
>     RemoteHostRegistry /loopback true put
> 
> in the RemoteHostRegistry dictionary section of the file
> /usr/NeWS/lib/NeWS/init.ps.  NeWS needs access to a network before
> it can open up windows.  Note: I tried:
> 
>     /NetSecurityWanted false def
> 
> but that didn't work.

In Response, Mark Callow <sgi!msc%ramoth.SGI.COM at ucbvax.berkeley.edu> writes:

>> No, no, no!  Never edit init.ps unless you really know what you are doing.

>> If you want to override things, do it from the user.ps file.  The system
>> default file is in /usr/NeWS/lib/user.ps or users can have individual ones
>> in their home directories.

>> In this particular case there is a command, newshost(1), that lets you
>> control the RemoteHostRegistry and enable and disable security.

>> The real problem here seems to be that someone edited the hosts file and
>> added loopback as the first name on the 127.1 line.  The problem has nothing
							^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> to do with the upgrade to 3.1D.
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I agree that init.ps is not a file which should be modified.  It should also be
pointed out however, that if you DO make all of your changes in the 
/usr/NeWS/lib/user.ps file, an operating system upgrade will indeed wipe out
this file.  The installation procedure does not check to see if users have
modified the system default user.ps file.  This is true up to and including
the 3.1D release.  

So if you make changes to the user.ps file (which is where they should be made),be sure to copy it to somewhere safe.  With this in mind, it is entirely 
possible that the upgrade could cause problems of this nature. 


--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Facca                     |     phone: 216-433-8318
NASA Lewis Research Center     |    
Cleveland, Ohio  44135         |     email: fsfacca at lerc08.nas.nasa.gov
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------