[Info-vax] Request description of UFS for VMS person

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <85729977-e3b7-478b-ab6f-bc0cf32b9574 at d7g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
> 	AEF <spamsink2001 at yahoo.com> writes:
>> On Apr 30, 8:46 am, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
>>> In article <36821cb7-714a-4749-9deb-b772eddac... at b6g2000pre.googlegroups.com>,
>>>         AEF <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Apr 29, 7:17 pm, "Bob Eager" <rd... at spamcop.net> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:43:42 UTC, AEF <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>> The primary one I can think of is that everything on the volume really
>>>>>> *is* a file. Everything in the volume is "transparent". In Unix, at
>>>>>> least the ones I have access to I don't know how to dump the super
>>>>>> block or inodes. And on one of them I can't even dump a directory!
>>>>>> So can you or anyone else tell us more of the advantages? And on the
>>>>>> Unix side if there is a way to read the super block and inodes? So
>>>>>> much for "everything is a file in Unix".
>>>>> Simple.  The whole *disk* is a file. Open it, and you can seek to any
>>>>> block on the disk, the read/write it.
>>>> Is the entire system a file, too? Just open it up and you can see
>>>> everything! :-)
>>> WHat do you mean by the entire system?
>> It comes out of the box.
>>
>>>> Re the disk:
>>>> What do I do?
>>>> $ cat <name of disk>
>>> If you wish and have the needed permissions.
>> I can't even cat a directory!
> 
> And as a regular user I can't read/modify the passwords on VMS.  Is that
> a shortcoming?

Certainly not!  You can modify your own password.  Others, no!

To affect anything belonging to another user, that user must set 
permissions to allow it or you must have privileges to override those 
permissions.