simh running as root etc

From: Vince Mulhollon <vlm_at_mulhollon.com>
Date: Fri Sep 3 17:22:23 2004

Hello fellow retrocomputing folks

Here's my perspective as the guy whom maintains the Debian
package of simh.

Lots of people don't like to run or install suid binaries
especially something like simh that can overwrite files.

Imagine a multiuser system, with simh pdp11 installed as root.
Now "attach lpt /etc/passwd" well you get the idea not a good
situation.

My way around it, was to compile two copies of the pdp11, one
plain user prog called pdp11, one with ethernet compiled in
called pdp11-ether. If someone wants they can SUID root the
pdp11-ether, but I'm not going to do it for them.
I am not an expert pdp11 user but this seems to result in no
complaints (whom is an expert on all 32 simh emulators other
than Bob S ?)

The reference to a kernel 2.6 feature that works around all that,
is probably a reference to the tun interfaces, the ones used by
openvpn and all that. At least that is my guess. Never tried that.

Its open source, if you can give a good explanation of what you
want in a simh package for Debian, I'll make it happen...
Received on Fri Sep 03 2004 - 17:22:23 BST