Re: [9fans] pwd

[pac <cej@cejchan.gli.cas.cz>]

>> In article <cej-1010815163141.A02421@cejchan.gli.cas.cz> you write:
>> >It is a single machine running plan9 in the whole LAN; thus it should
>> >serve everything: cpu, file, auth ...  Do I have to configure auth
>> >services manually?
>> 
>> Well, if it's set up as a terminal, and using the default
>> /rc/bin/termrc, then it won't start the auth services, and you'd have
>> to configure it otherwise.  Likewise with serving kfs.
>> 
>> If it's the only plan 9 machine on the network, you have a chicken and
>> egg problem when it boots up; it's the kernel that asks for your
>> password and expects to be able to talk to the auth server to validate
>> it.  But, if you haven't started the auth server, and you clearly
>> haven't since you haven't started any user processes yet, it'll have
>> nothing to validate against.
>> 
>> CPU servers get around this by either not asking for a password at all
>> and having a local KFS file system (started by the kernel) off of which
>> they'll start the auth server, or, if talking to a file server, by
>> timing out and saying, ``okay, I'll use the key that's in my nvram to
>> authenticate myself to the file server....'' (the file server also
>> knows it's own key, so that's okay) and then starting up the auth
>> server.
>> 
>> Terminals expect that an auth server already is running, and will fail
>> to start if they can't get a valid password (unless they're configured
>> to start up standalone, using kfs, which again ist started by the
>> kernel, in which case we're back where we started, where whatever
>> password you enter is essentially meaningless, thus the idea of
>> changing it is also meaningless).
>> 
>> Does that make sense?  (Other 9fans, did I make any mistakes in my
>> description above?  Please feel free to correct me; I don't want to
>> spread falsehoods out of ignorance.  :-)
>> 
>> 	- Dan C.
>> 
>> 


Hmm... sounds like there is no way how to authenticate a user on a singlr plan9 machine, am I right?