[Info-vax] Why is INSTALL.EXE privileged?

[Bart.Zorn@gmail.com]

On Feb 12, 10:41 pm, pe... at langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOEGER)
wrote:
> In article <howard-37FCA5.12571412022... at atoulouse-552-1-42-74.w92-136.abo.wanadoo.fr>, Howard S Shubs <how... at shubs.net> writes:
>
> >In article <4d56c01... at news.langstoeger.at>,
> > pe... at langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) wrote:
>
> >> The nice (youtube) video on openvmshobbyist.org reminded me of a question I
> >> had (in the 80ies and) long forgotten:
>
> >> Why is INSTALL.EXE installed with privileges?
>
> >INSTALL changes system structures.  It makes images "known".  It can
> >give those images privileges.
>
> In case you haven't noted the rest of my posting:
>
> Why does the image (INSTALL.EXE) need the privileges?
> This is system managers duty, and system managers have privs already.
> So, no need for the image to have the privileges as well (or at all)...
>
> Nice try, but think again
>
> --
> Peter "EPLAN" LANGSTÖGER
> Network and OpenVMS system specialist
> E-mail  Pe... at LANGSTOeGER.at
> A-1030 VIENNA  AUSTRIA              I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist

I did the test and removed the INSTALL entry from SYS
$MANAGER:VMSIMAGES.DAT. The system rebooted without problems. Next
step is to hack AUTOGEN to prevent it from putting INSTALL back in.

Interesting to see that there are more images installed with more
privileges than I can imagine they would need. SETAUDIT even has
BYPASS, which IMHO should not normally be used at all.

Regards,

Bart