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

[Richard B. Gilbert]

AEF wrote:
> On Apr 30, 1:49 pm, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
>> In article <85729977-e3b7-478b-ab6f-bc0cf32b9... at d7g2000prl.googlegroups.com>,
>>         AEF <spamsink2... 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?
> 
> Uh, that's because the passwords aren't there; their HASHES are.
> 

I can't think of any system that stores passwords "en claire".  They are 
  always hashed or encrypted somehow.  Authentication is done by hashing 
the password entered by the user and comparing the hash with the stored 
hash for that user.

It's NOT a shortcoming, it's a feature!  Most systems treat passwords in 
some similar fashion.