How the Device-Allocation Mechanism Works

This section gives an example of how the device-allocate mechanism works.

The allocate command first checks for the presence of a lock file under the device name for the specified device in the /etc/security/dev directory. If the file is owned by allocate, then the ownership of the lock file is changed to the name of the user who initiated the allocate command.

The allocate command then checks for an entry for the device in the device_allocate file, and checks whether the entry shows that the device as allocatable.

The first listing in the following example shows that a lock file exists with owner bin, group bin, and mode 600 for the st0 device in /etc/security/dev. The second listing shows that the associated device-special files are set up properly, with owner bin, group bin, and mode 000.

untouchable% ls -lg /etc/security/dev/st0
-rw------- 1 bin bin      		      0 Dec 6 15:21 /etc/security/dev/st0
untouchable% ls -lg /devices/sbus@1,f8000000/esp@0,800000
c--------- 1 bin bin		       18,  4 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:
c--------- 1 bin bin	       18, 20 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:b
c--------- 1 bin bin	       18, 28 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:bn
c--------- 1 bin bin	       18, 12 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:c
					 .
					 .
					 .
c--------- 1 bin bin	       18,  0 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:u
c--------- 1 bin bin	       18, 16 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:ub
c--------- 1 bin bin	       18, 24 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:ubn
c--------- 1 bin bin	       18,  8 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:un

In this example, the user vanessa allocates device st0.

untouchable% whoami
vanessa
untouchable% allocate st0

When the user vanessa runs the allocate command to allocate the tape st0, allocate first checks for the existence of an /etc/security/dev/st0 file. If no lock file exists or if the lock file is owned by a user other than allocate, then user vanessa could not allocate the device.

If the allocate command finds the lock file for the device with the correct ownership and permissions, it then checks to make sure that the device has an entry in the device_allocate file and that the entry specifies that the device is allocatable.

In this example, the default device_allocate entry for the st0 device specifies that the device is allocatable. Because the allocate command finds that all these conditions are met, the device is allocated to user vanessa.

The allocate command changes the ownership and permissions of the device-special files that are associated with the device in the /dev directory. To allocate the st0 device to the user vanessa, the mode on its associated device-special files is changed to 600 and the owner is changed to vanessa.

The allocate command also changes the ownership of the lock file that is associated with the device in the /etc/security/dev directory. To allocate the st0 device to the user vanessa, the owner of /etc/security/dev/st0 is changed to vanessa.

In the following example, after the user vanessa executes the allocate command with the device name st0, the owner of /etc/security/dev/st0 is changed to vanessa and the owner of the associated device-special files is now also vanessa. Lastly, user vanessa now has permission to read and write the files.

untouchable% whoami
vanessa
untouchable% allocate st0
untouchable% ls -lg /etc/security/dev/st0
-rw------- 1 vanessa staff 		      0 Dec 6 15:21 /etc/security/dev/st0
untouchable% ls -la /devices/sbus@1,f8000000/esp@0,800000
.
.
.
crw------- 1 vanessa 18,  4 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:
crw------- 1 vanessa 18, 12 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:b
crw------- 1 vanessa 18, 12 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:bn
crw------- 1 vanessa 18, 12 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:c
.
.
.
crw------- 1 vanessa 18,  4 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:u
crw------- 1 vanessa 18, 12 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:ub
crw------- 1 vanessa 18, 12 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:ubn
crw------- 1 vanessa 18, 12 May 12 13:11 st@4,0:un