Re: [9fans] Authentication and "emu -d"

[Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>]

On Mon, Jun 04, 2001 at 10:12:34AM +0100, forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote:
> 
> that really is inferno-specific, so we'll answer it in detail on that list.
> 
> i'd thought we left -d deliberately undocumented
> but i see it is there in the manual page after all.
> 
Security by obscurity (or, in this case, "d" for disinformation :-)
You'll eventually be pleased to have been caught with your pants down,
the idea is good, definitely in the list of nice-to-haves.

> >>Also, starting "emu -d1" from cpurc seems to do ugly things to the
> >>keyboard/input interface, the console no longer echoes.  And output
> >>should probably be redirected to a log file, too.  Something for the
> 
> this is just the superficial reason i intended to leave it
> undocumented.  it was left in the code because one group might have
> been using it at the time, under Solaris, for which it was originally
> hacked in (where hacked is the right description), in a hurry.  i
> suppose you could wonder: if it can't cope with the console correctly,
> how is it likely to do on the hard bits?  that gets close to the
> truth.  it does only what it was intended to do,
> but doesn't go far enough, even though they did hire a web page designer!
> anyway, someone will send more about it to the inferno list later.


Well, _I'm_ using it, on a CPU server that sits practically headless
(and could be headless if I had more faith - Microsoft keep rattling
my faith and it bleeds over all the other OSs in my life :-)

It will be just fine the way it is, and as soon as "I can get my
pennies together for the source licence (TM)" I'll see if I can help
smooth some of the wrinkles out.

Just of the record , would "emu -d1 </dev/null >/dev/null >[2=1]"
break, or can I safely try it without losing what little mind I still
have left?

(My answer to that, in your shoes, might be "you tell us", but I'm
going to need some encouragement to tackle such obviously tangential
operations, I don't do elective surgery :-)

++L

PS: Re-reading your answer, it would seem that "emu" has two closely
coupled functions that could do with some decoupling, namely "dis"
emulation and graphics (I'm reading between the lines, I get the
feeling "emu -d"'s failing lies in the management of interaction with
its environment).  Perhaps discarding the graphics baggage is an
option?  Sounds tough to do, for little gain, but there's something to
be said for text-only interactions, and Plan 9 ain't going that way,
perhaps Inferno can.